Pact of Iron Penal Planetoid Open For Prisoners! (FT) [Archive] - Page 2

Kahanistan

14-01-2007, 16:58

Fulton nodded. "All right, evacuate the encampment. Come with me, we've got to warn everybody to get as far away from the Sephirons as possible before those missiles hit." She rose out of her hospital cot, despite still being ill from the pills. The doctor handed her a Dramamine capsule, which she promptly ingested before exiting the tent with the doctor.

Lt. Caldwell walked up to the three. "What's all the commotion?"

"The Atopians fired some kind of precision missiles at the Sephirons. They're coming down near our position in minutes, we've got to get as far away from them as possible. You get the people in that direction, we'll take care of things here." She pointed at the eastern edge of the encampment.

Some of the soldiers who had overheard the evacuation (they spoke fairly loudly, subjected as they were to time constraints and the accompanying emotional stress of running for their lives while the Sephrions were murdered before their eyes) fled the camp immediately. Others came out to listen, and were promptly ordered to flee the camp by the Kahanistanian officers who were still in the center of the base near the first-aid tent.

Fulton turned to the doctor. "Take the Storm-Major out of here. I'll deal with the evacuation from here." She ran for another tent, where there would be a bullhorn for making camp-wide announcements. Finally, under the caked porno mags, horse Viagra, spare weapons, and other accoutrements of a Kahanistanian soldier's tent, Fulton found the bullhorn. The entire ordeal took her about thirty seconds.

"Attention all camp personnel, there is an incoming missile attack, evacuate the base immediately, this is not a drill. Avoid contact with Sephiron personnel at all costs. Repeat, evacuate the base and avoid Sephiron personnel," said Major Fulton.

She then dropped the bullhorn and ran as fast as her long, slender legs would take her. The remaining soldiers soon followed or fled in other directions, and five minutes after receiving word of the missiles, the base was completely evacuated of all living personnel.

Skgorria

14-01-2007, 17:33

"As ordered," responded Yuklig as he pushed himself to his feet. He gripped onto the sides of the bed to stop himself swaying, he felt dizzy and his ribs hurt like hell. Guess I'll hurt a lot more if I get hit by a missile strike he mused, and staggered out of the tent into the chaos that was the Kahanistani camp. Soldiers were running in all directions, holding various pieces of equipment and personal gear in an attempt to save it and themselves from annihilation as the missiles burned towards the ground. Yuklig estimated that the missiles would hit soon, so he looked around and tried to find Major Fulton admist the pandemonium. He then heard a loud voice proclaim an incoming missile strike, and the numbers of fleeing soldiers surged. Yuklig turned to the source of the noise and caught sight of Fulton and started to move to join her, but a wall of people was blocking his way and he was unable to reach her. Seeing that people were fleeing in different directions, he called out
"Your commander is going that way - follow her!" and pointed to the direction that Major Fulton was running. He then proceeded to follow the Major at a rather slower pace, his torso aching like fury. As he ran, he saw an OMF beast jump out of its hole and attempt to attack Yuklig, who promptly ducked back and sliced it with his sabre. Now that they were out of the secure perimeter, the wildlife seemed to be taking advantage of the chaos.
"'ware the wildlife!" he yelled out as creatures poured out of burrows and began to attack the Kahanistanis.

Kahanistan

14-01-2007, 18:01

A soldier threw a TAR-21 to the camp doctor as he struggled to take Yuklig out of the camp. The doctor put the strap around his shoulders, then reached his arms behind himself and hefted the Storm-Major onto his back in a firefighter's carry. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireman's_carry)

He then locked and loaded the Tavor, blasting incendiary rounds into any suspicious plant he saw, especially those that were actively attacking his comrades. Lt. Caldwell, who was attempting to keep the evacuation sane, picked up several ammunition clips that a fleeing soldier had dropped and crammed them into his pockets, giving a few to the doctor.

Major Fulton was about five hundred feet from the camp. She gasped in horror as a plant snaked its tendrils around an officer's leg and ripped the flesh off. As the man roared in pain and fired his weapon in a panic, blasting off much of what was left of his own leg in the process, Fulton fired an incendiary round into the plant. She did not notice the plant moving toward her own legs until it went up in flames, burned by a Molotov cocktail thrown by another soldier.

Nearby, a group of three or four soldiers were standing back to back with bayonets out. They had evidently run out of ammunition, and an OMF beast was busily gnawing on the mutilated carcass of what five minutes earlier had been their squad leader. Two of the soldiers were furiously thrusting their bayonets into the demonic plant as it consumed the bones of the ex-soldier.

Hell had come to the troops as they were forced to leave the safety of the camp to avoid the missile strike. The camp itself would be likely submerged in hellfire when the missiles struck it and destroyed the bulk of the remaining supplies. Luckily for those who would survive, the soldiers would have only two days left on the planet; the supplies were needed only for immediate survival. It remained to be seen how many were yet to die that day...

Atopiana

14-01-2007, 22:49

As the Kahanistanis and Skgorrians scattered away from the Space Marines, the West Wall's rockets screamed into their targets.

Each group of Space Marines was first hit by 25 area-denial warheads. Exploding open 50 feet above the ground, each of these scattered 500 bomblets across an area some 100 metres square. The bomblets exploded on contact, firing super-dense depleted uranium shrapnel out at six times the speed of sound. Two and a half kilometres of ground was scythed with flailing radioactive death.

Seconds later, each Marine's last recorded position was hit with ten 50-ton high-explosive anti-armour warheads.

West Wall Gunnery Command:

"Targets well hit. Prepare second salvo, alert 56th Bomber Squadron, have them on-station in ten minutes."

Sephrioth

14-01-2007, 22:54

ooc i must witdraw from this rp so all things relating to my careter are rectoned

Kahanistan

15-01-2007, 00:22

The explosions in the air told the Kahanistanian commanders that the missiles had safely detonated. As such, the surviving soldiers, many carrying injured soldiers who had lost legs to the plant beasts earlier or in the current engagement, attempted to break contact with the local wildlife that had attacked them and return to the base.

The sight of the soldiers was not pretty. Most were covered in blood, even the ones who were not injured had carried their wounded comrades, consoled dying friends, or simply been sprayed when one of the demonic beings severed another soldier's jugular. Some had shrapnel wounds from the missiles or tendrils still stuck in their bodies from dead OMF beasts.

Lieutenant Caldwell walked toward the base, his leg mangled but still viable. He was walking an injured man a full foot taller than himself toward the base. Then, he saw her.

"Hey." The Kahanistanian military, especially the Presidential Security Detachment, had never imposed strict protocols of formality, and officers and enlisted mixed as well as they felt comfortable doing.

Fulton walked ahead, cradling a mangled corpse in her arms. She bore no facial expression, and seemed oblivious to the blood on her gray combat uniform, the entrails dangling by her combat boots, the OMF beast's tendril sticking out of her lower thigh, or the eyeball gruesomely decorating her otherwise pretty dark brown hair.

At first the lieutenant thought the eye was Fulton's own. No. Her eyes were neatly in their sockets, staring ahead at the carnage that had befallen the forces, and relatively free of blood compared to the rest of her face and body. The eyeball had apparently been blasted into her face when a soldier's head was blown apart by a grenade that had been accidentally dropped. She turned to face the man who had just spoken to her.

"I was wrong not to trust Yuklig," said Caldwell. "He must have told you about the missiles, he saved us. How many do we have left?"

"Thirty-one dead," said Fulton calmly. "That we have now. I know at least one hundred and fifty are alive. We're still looking for the dead and wounded. Have you seen Yuklig?"

"No, I haven't seen him," said Caldwell. "I think he made it, though. He's a tough guy. Saw him take out one of those plant critters with a sword."

Fulton nodded. "As soon as we get everyone back to base, we're on downtime. I think we deserve it after all we've been through. I think we couldn't handle any more training even if we wanted to, we're barely half our original number. I don't know what I'll say to Williams' family..." Her voice trailed off as she held the carcass against her, like a horribly malformed child. "Or the other hundred and some people who were killed by the Kh'rask, or the missiles... murdered by the Atopians to... do what, kill a few rogue Sephiron prisoners? These people make me sick."

"I thought you liked Yuklig."

"He's all right, for a Nazi. He saved us, I don't think he had anything to do with the missile strike. He was in the same danger as we were, the Atopians were not above killing him if it was necessary to keep the prisoners from rising up. These people are ruthless. If it were up to me, I'd recommend against training any more troops here, they're not safe from the Atopians."

"Think the Defense Minister will listen to you?"

Sure, she'll listen to some angry young officer that's just lost half her command on this miserable rock. Not if it means we get a force capable of standing up to the Doomies, she won't. "I wouldn't count on it."

They walked into the damaged camp, filled with flaming tents and supplies. Those who were able washed and rested for the night, others tended to the wounded and dying in the medical tent, most of the rest lay in the remaining cots awake, eagerly awaiting the flight off of that miserable rock.

Skgorria

15-01-2007, 17:03

The sights, sounds and smells of the battlefield overwhelmed Yuklig's senses, triggering a flood of memories. The explosions reminded him of an assault upon a renegade artillery base on Skgorria IV, the burning of the deforestation chems deployed during clearance operation on a nameless jungle world, and the bodies of countless operations. His right arm hung limp by his side, still clutching the sabre given to him after graduating from the Special Action Academy that was now covered with plant ichor as a result of defending himself and as many Kahanistanis as he could. He had no idea where the medic who had originally been carrying him had gone, Yuklig hoped he wasn't one of those claimed by the monsters that lived on this world, the medic had done his duty and followed orders.

As Yuklig staggered across the battlefield, he checked the bodies of the Kahanistanis that were lying on the floor. He was an OMF beast struggling to reach an unattended corpse, doubtlessly thinking it would be an easy meal. Wearily, Yuklig pulled out his blaster and shot the creature three times, scattering the small carnivore across a large area and setting its remains on fire. Wearily, he holstered his blaster and made his way towards the camp, thanking his luck that this Captain Servchenko had warned him of the missiles. I seem to be feeling a certain...antagonism towards this Captain. I wonder why? Yuklig wondered, then mentally shrugged. Guess all my memories will come back at some point. His thoughts were interrupted by the realisation he'd arrived in the Kahanistani camp, where he saw Fulton and another officer conferring. Yuklig noted the large ammount of gore upon her, but deduced that it wasn't hers as she seemed to still be alive. He walked up to the Major and gave a casual salute,
"Good to see you made it out of there Major, anything I can do to help here?" He then took out a hankerchief from his pocket and offered it to Fulton.

Kahanistan

15-01-2007, 18:02

Fulton took the handkerchief and wiped the gore away from her face. The eyeball that had been thrown into her hair fell out as she did so. "Oh!" she said softly as it rolled from her combat boot to the ground.

"What do you know about combat first aid?" she asked. "Other than that, not much, we leave tomorrow to rotate in a new set of troops, until then, all non-medical personnel are on downtime, and the sentries will be relieved early for this."

She cast her gaze downwards and noticed the OMF beast's dead spike in her leg. "Looks like you'll get to spend more time with me in the medical tent," she said lazily. She tried to clean the gore away from her neck, but the handkerchief was too saturated and she merely smeared it. She finished the job with her uniform sleeve. Luckily, Kahanistanian combat uniforms were highly resistant to stains as well as having waterproof linings, an essential feature for something that was expected to get blood and gore on it.

"They did all this to kill a few prisoners? Why did they do this?" asked Major Fulton. Not one hundred meters from her, a soldier stepped on one of the unexploded bomblets, being instantly torn to pieces by the supersonic explosion of the uranium shell. Fulton, never used to this kind of intense combat in her capacity as a security officer, screamed as the unfortunate girl went up in a gruesome blood firework. She broke down in tears and threw her arms around the Storm-Major, crying inconsolably. She knew there was slight potential for fatalities, but she did not expect the camp keepers to be responsible for those fatalities.

She must have resembled a child victim of war crimes by this point, with her body covered in blood, her small frame, the anguished expression on her face, and the tears running down her cheeks uncontrollably. She had never had a reputation as being particularly emotional, but seeing someone under her command suddenly blow up in her face forced home the point that the Atopians did not care one iota for human life. As far as she knew, Yuklig was the only decent man among the entire contingent.

Skgorria

15-01-2007, 19:01

"Sadly, I know nothing about first aid beyond pain supressors, holding down on the wound and shouting 'medic!', if that's any help," Yuklig quipped in an effort to relieve some of the stress from Fulton. "I can be a quick learner though," he added as Fulton cleaned herself up. The front of Yuklig's black uniform was covered in dirt from when he had fallen over and his boots had lost their shine, but otherwise he was clean except for some splatters of OMF plant innards.

Yuklig ducked instinctively when he heard an explosion. The explosion rocked him, but somehow he was able to stay on his feet. Damn those Atopians! he inwardly cursed, guessing that some of the warheads had either time-delay fuses on or had not properly exploded. His train of thought was completely derailed by Fulton throwing her arms around him. Yuklig was not entirely sure what to do with this sobbing woman, and the expression of confusion and uncertainty on his face must have looked hillarious to any passing soldiers. He settled on putting his arms around her slowly, expecting for her at any second to yell and scream and curse him.
"Well Major," Yuklig began, "I'm not sure if this is any help, but I'll say it anyway. You've done a damn good job keeping as many people alive as you have, and you're almost off this rock. Now if you say the word, I can get you all off here right now and back to your world, and you can go with your head held high. After all, I'm pretty sure you're the first senior officer to kill a sentient rock-man." He patted her on the back to reassure her, and then turned his head to the nearest Kahanistani trooper.
"You there! If no-one is marking unexploded ordonance, then get on it!"

Kahanistan

15-01-2007, 19:23

"I'd like that," said Fulton, her voice still shaking. She did nothing about Yuklig's arms around her. The early departure would give her or someone else time to brief the next crop of troops to the planet. A nearby squad of Kahanistanian soldiers got to scouting for UXO's, which would then be shot from long range with sniper rifles.

"How soon can you get us off here?" asked Major Fulton. They were scheduled to return home in 18 hours, but much of the armament had not been collected. That was fine with most of the Kahanistanian commanders, although it would not be nearly enough to sustain the larger crop of troops that would be coming in, a force 1,200 strong and better briefed, under the deputy commander.

Fulton was not thinking about the briefings, however; she was more concerned with getting away from this place before she went insane. She wiped the tears from her face. "Thank you... thank you very much," she said.

Caldwell nodded. "Guys! We're leaving early! Get ready to get the wounded prepared, we're finally going home!"

The soldiers in the camp congregated around the medical tent, where the wounded would be loaded into the transports. Emotions were mixed; some were euphoric to leave, others were depressed, in grief, or even on the verge of nervous breakdowns, some were bitter about losing limbs in training exercises, and others were just thankful to be alive.

The dead bodies were lined up nearby, having been dried, periodically cleaned of decomposition fluids, and sprayed with copious quantities of disinfectant. They would be returned to Kahanistan for proper burials, cremations, cryonic preservation, et cetera.

In a short time, the survivors would return home with their new training...

Skgorria

15-01-2007, 19:53

"If you want off right now, I can probably have a series of shuttles down here in ten, fifteen minutes," Yuklig stated, "but I'll call 'Gates of Berlin' and have them send down a GR-75, the type of ship you came in." He took his right arm away from Fulton and fished out his comlink, keeping the left arm tightly around her.
"Yuklig to 'Gates of Berlin', come in" he transmitted.
"'Gates of Berlin' here Storm-Major, how can I help you on this fine day?" a perky voice replied.
"Firstly, stow the chatter," Yuklig snarled, "and secondly, I need a GR-75 transport or something similar down to my location as soon as possible for troop transport."
"Just a moment sir" the operator on board the battlestation went quiet for a minute, then spoke again. "A GR-75 is being prepared right now sir and will be sent down to the planet. Should be with you within the hour."
"Thankyou, Yuklig out," finished the Storm-Major as he thumbed the comlink off, replacing the comlink back in his belt and putting his arm around the Major once more.
"There we go, with luck you'll be out of here within the hour," Yuklig offered cheerily. "It will be a shame to see you go, however," he sighed, wiping a tear away from Fulton's face with his hand. He was genuinely sad at the idea of Major Fulton leaving, whilst in theory she was a sworn enemy of his race, Yuklig had nothing but respect for this woman. In fact, he had a great deal of respect for all of the Kahanistanis. They came to this planet with primitive weapons and held their own where most Skgorrians or Atopians wouldn't dare go he thought, feeling more contempt for the Atopians every second.
"Major Fulton," he began, "if it would be permitted by you, I would like to serve as a military liason to the next group that comes through. Don't worry, I won't make your troops give me a 'Sieg Heil' every time they see me," he added, reverting once again to humour in an attempt to mask how awkward he was feeling.

Kahanistan

15-01-2007, 20:08

"Certainly," replied Fulton. "That sounds like a good idea to me." She stood there waiting, her arm still around the Storm-Major. The soldiers near her concealed their disgust as well as they could and began moving the wounded, counting the bodies, and performing head counts. They would rather not have the mental image of their commander... associating with this Nazi filth. Luckily, the injured patients from the hospital had arrived ten minutes earlier, avoiding a potential panic if the count didn't match.

She stood waiting for the transport. Something inside her told her that she would see him again. Whether she was right or not, or what the future would bring her, was anyone's guess.

Fulton knew she would recommend against the further deployment of troops to Skgorria, but she also knew that the Defense Ministry was ruthlessly determined to build a crop of soldiers who could protect the government against an attack by the feared Doomies or Freeks.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 00:12

The whine of the combat dropship's engines was the first announcement of its arrival. It was a standard Atopian Space Force dropship, painted low-visibility grey and with a delta-wing configuration. Bumps and clusters of pods hid lethal weapons systems and a variety of optics and radar units.

Some of the blisters had peeled back, revealing matt black cannon and the odd rocket pod. Several of the cannons tracked back and forth, as if looking for something. Before it had landed, the hatches on either side of its body had opened, and armoured troopers were leaping out, personal anti-gravitic propulsion units keeping them off the ground and moving, their weapons covering every compass point.

As swiftly as they had exited, they dropped to the ground, their chameleonic armour blending into the terrain within seconds. One, however, stayed the pale grey that was the default armour colour. Her helmet blazon read STANISLAVA, L, and she came to a graceful halt in front of the blood-soaked Fulton and the injured Yuklig.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislava," she began, her voice a harsh grate issuing from side-mounted speakers on her helmet, "you are Fulton and you are Yuklig? I am here to ensure that we eradicated those Space Marines. We could not be too careful, they are... impressively resiliant. West Wall Gunnery relays their apologies for catching you in the blast, we were unaware of your location. I am also authorised to inform you that your stay on this planet has been unusually violent and that we can assure your government that any future stay will be less so. If any of your soldiers are alive they may make full use of my Beedee's medical facilities, which are quite comprehensive. Now if you will excuse me, I have some Space Marines to locate."

So saying, she stepped back, her armour and weapon shifting and flowing into the background...

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 01:08

Fulton nodded to the medical officer. "Take the criticals to the Atopian ship, everyone else will go with the Skgorrians."

She let Stanislava's words sink in. Could I be guilty of the same thing... I assumed they had no regard for human life. She merely nodded at the Atopian commander, waiting for the Skgorrian transport to take them back home, thinking deeply. The fascists jumped to the conclusion that other races were inferior; Fulton had jumped to the conclusion that the Atopian commanders were callous, inhuman killers. She would ponder this view for a long time to come...

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 05:57

As the bloodsoaked major nodded to the blurring visage of his passenger, Aircraftsman First Class Farborgs sat on the steps that had hissed out of the BD-452L's underbelly. A loading bay had lowered with a pneumatic thud, ready to receive casualties.

Farborgs inhaled, deeply, on his pipe, as he surveyed the smoking ruins of the camp.
"Well," he announced, to no-one in particular, "someone fucked up big time. Wonder what that was about?"
"No idea, mate," groaned the Loadmaster, "but thirty-two workscrip says it's something to do with those hardass Space Force Marines that we dumped. Might even have something to do with those poor sods with the antique boomsticks, you know?"
"Yeh. Maybe. Fuck it, let's give them a hand, they look totally shattered."
"Aye. Not something you face every day, is it?"
"Hm?"
"You know, a several-thousand rocket barrage?"
"Oh! No, I suppose it's not, no..."

As the two men trooped down the ladder, their boots ringing on the dull-gleaming metal, they motioned to the the medicsbusying themselves on the load platform.

"Time to earn your pay, comrades," grinned Tyksaar, the Loadmaster, "these brave bastards have some serious trauma to be ironed out."

As the medics jogged over, diagnostic machines and trauma-stretchers hovering along behind them, they began to take in the immense scale of the destruction caused by the West Wall's barrage.

"Grud," breathed one, a petit woman with a hint of Jewish/Arab ancestry, "what happened here?"
"Governor Frank's psychopaths," grunted her boss, "that fort's dangerous and not because of it's armoury, either... anyway, get to it, there are wounded here!"

Fanning out, the four medics began - with the assistance of Tyksaar and Farborg - to collate the wounded. Those with serious, possibly mortal, injuries, were stabilised and dosed with a cocktail of pain suppressants and immunoenhancers as well as various coagulants, anti-coagulants, antiseptics, antibiotics, and other wondrous drugs. The less seriously injured were given pain relief and localised assistance - the setting of broken limbs, the temporary sealing of open wounds and the like - while the shell-shocked and mentally traumatised were dosed with happy pills until they could be given hypnotic relief therapy back on board the Victory's fully-equipped psychiatric hospital.

Meanwhile, the Space Force troops had scoured the area as thoroughly as they could. All that they'd found were traces of biological matter which might have been the Sephiron Marines... or they might not have been. There were certainly no life-forms within the blast zone, and none at all outside it that matched the signatures of the Space Marines.

"Good," rasped Stanislava, "they're gone. Whichever fool allowed them on-planet needs shooting. Reform on the dropship," she ordered, "and give the medics an assist if needs be. Stay alert for aliens, and ensure that no-one tries anything stupid like attacking us. Blue-on-blue is never good for morale."

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 13:07

More patients than Fulton had expected were taken onto the Atopian ship for medical treatment; she had only seen about thirty or so wounded. Then again, many of those given up for dead by Kahanistanian medicine could possibly be saved by the more advanced medical facilities of the Pact of Iron powers. As such, many of the recently "dead" soldiers were put on the Skgorrian ship to be treated, the doctor and medics realising that for such an advanced society, the only death that mattered was that which destroyed the brain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theoretical_death)

Major Fulton and a few other soldiers waited for the Skgorrian ship to take the less critically injured soldiers to Kahanistan.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 16:17

With the last of the Khanistanis loaded onto the dropship, Lieutenant-Colonel Svetlana and her infantry fanned away from the sleek grey vessel as its doors hissed closed. They would be heading back to the Fort to arrest the commander of the West Wall for incompetance, their fission-powered armoured suits making short work of the distance.

Back on board the shuttle, the small team of medics stabilised the dying, tended to those they could aid, and ensured no-one would "kark it," in the words of the Loadmaster. Within mere moments the vessel had left the atmosphere and was heading for the huge bulk of the ASV Victory.

"If any of you are still awake and coherent enough to take this in," began the pilot from the intercom, "you can just make out the Gates of Berlin through the starboard viewscreen. Up ahead is the Victory, which - as you may be able to tell from the lights - is rather large. We're heading for Docking Bay 278 Theta, which is closest to the main psychiatric and serious trauma units. Once there you will be transferred and cured of what ails you before we take you back to Kahanistan. Oh - that reminds me - the corpses of your comrades who fell previously have been sent home already. Sealed caskets I'm afraid. Anyway, enough blather from me, we'll be docking in fifteen so get comfortable."

Skgorria

16-01-2007, 17:37

The whale-shaped GR-75 landed just outside the camp, and its rear ramp hissed as it was lowered. The co-pilot stood in the cargo bay and waved his cap,
"Roll up, roll up ladies and gentlemen. A wonder of a lifetime awaits you like you have never seen before! THRILL at the sight of space, WONDER at the boredom of waiting in the GR-75s cargo hold, and MILDLY COMPLAIN about how uncomfortable it is!" The co-pilot had a big grin on his face and was clearly enjoying giving his performance as a circus master. Yuklig, still with his arm around Fulton, shook his head,
"What a cretin. I can't believe how recruiting standards have dropped," he moaned as he despaired for the future of the Skgorrian Air Force. "Still, on we go Major. You're going home." Yuklig's tone was glum as he walked her over to the transport, as soon as the last Kahanistani was on board, they would lift off and head back for Kahanistan.

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 17:57

The Kahanistanian forces boarded the ships home. Out of an original strength of 300, 132 were dead or suspected dead, many having been vaporised by the missiles and bombs fired on the Kh'rasks and Sephirons. 63 had sustained wounds of some form or another, but only nine wounded were likely to be deemed incapable of military service when their injuries healed; in Kahanistan many of the most seasoned combat troops had artificial limbs; it was considered a badge of honour in some of the more hard-core Imperial Marine combat units to be a triple or quadruple amputee. The combat-incapable soldiers were those who had suffered severe brain damage or quadraplegia.

159 soldiers would return to duty over the next few weeks, many requiring psychiatric counseling for trauma. This had been upgraded in importance since an incident over a year ago when a Marine officer had become insane after being forced to watch his family being impaled by the Freeks, but escaping before it could be done to him. A month later he had murdered several dozen prisoners of war and several of his own soldiers, fled the camp, and gotten himself killed approaching a restricted area armed and in full combat gear.

Major Fulton stood next to Yuklig the whole trip, at one point forgetting her position and allowing her hand to brush against his in her emotional state. The force had suffered some 40% fatalities; a commander who experienced 4% fatalities on a training mission was likely to be court-martialed for gross incompetence. She stared ahead wordlessly, not wanting to think about what was likely to happen to her in the next few weeks.

Skgorria

16-01-2007, 18:28

The door to the cargo hold swung open, and the co-pilot stepped through. He approached Yuklig and saluted smartly,
"Sir, we're just about to enter the atmosphere. We'll be landing in the next few minutes."
"Thankyou," Yuklig returned the salute and waved a dismissal at the co-pilot who promptly returned to the cockpit.
"We're nearly there," Yuklig smiled, "it'll be good to get back home, where the plants don't try and eat you eh?" He was concerned that she wasn't talking much, he guessed that she was worrying about how her superiors might chew her out.
"Major," he began, "I don't know why you're all quiet, but I'm guessing you're concerned about how things will stand with your superiors. For what its worth, I'll testify before your superiors that your performance and skill were exceptional given the circumstances, and if they don't think you've done a good job I'll call home and have them gassed," he joked.

A large thump was felt as the transport landed, and the ramp was lowered. The Kahanistanis were home at last.

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 19:17

Fulton smiled softly and a lump formed in her throat. "Thank you," she said quietly. She hugged Yuklig tightly, then released him. Then, she walked down the ramp into Kahanistan.

At the airbase, Captain Aleister Beckett, deputy commander of the Presidential Security Detachment, was already there with 1,200 soldiers. He was an average-sized man in his mid-20's with short, light brown hair and a very strong frame. The military had evidently decided to accelerate the training regimen, which suggested to Fulton that Command had decided that Kahanistan was in danger of being overrun by Kraven. Then again, maybe it's just a precautionary revision...

Not expecting the Skgorrians for another 16 hours, Beckett and his unit had only recently arrived. As he saw his commander walking off the Skgorrian vessel, the only thing she said to him was, "Don't use the drop pods." He decided to stop her to ask her some questions while the soldiers, surprised at seeing the Skgorrians so early while they were just setting up to unload the huge amount of supplies 1,200 soldiers would need for two weeks, unpacked now at a frenzied pace.

While the unpacking was going on, Captain Beckett stopped the Major.

"Drop pods, Major?"

"The Skgorrians encouraged us to use the drop pods to land, my pod of ten was stranded a long way off from the rest of the encampment, and we nearly got killed. Go down by dropship to our camp, the Skgorrians will tell you where it is."

"We got a whole load of sealed caskets here earlier..." He thought for a way to sensitively describe the state of the corpses to Major Fulton. "They looked pretty bad, what happened that caused such a high casualty rate?" He had to have an explanation for the troops or morale would suffer and they would mutiny if they feared such an atrocious casualty rate.

"For one, the Atopians had a couple of missile accidents, from what they told me, they'll implement protocols so you don't have to worry. For another, I was dumped away from the main base, so much of the command was run by Lieutenant Caldwell. He just doesn't have a lot of experience as a combat commander." Of course, neither did Fulton, but she was at least trained to command a large unit, a mere First Lieutenant was not. He had, however, done a decent job of commanding forces above the responsibilities normally assigned to his rank, even if he did suffer heavy casualties. "But he ran the base pretty well, from what I saw. He apparently had a defensive perimeter set up around the base, and showed knowledge of rearguard tactics in his report to me."

"Major, what's wrong?" The commander had been speaking flatly, completely devoid of emotion. While she had been suffering from depression for over a year, she seemed strangely worse.

"I saw a lot of gore," she said. "People blown up in front of you, mangled by those plants... that reminds me." She pulled a dossier out of her bag, compiled by the soldiers at the camp and with her in the drop pods, containing written descriptions and photographs of OMF beasts taken by soldiers who had brought digital cameras, photographs of living and dead Kh'rasks, Atopian and Skgorrian military personnel, Pollovi, D'rasii, and of the tall grass where the OMF beasts loved to hide. There were also disturbing, graphic photos of mutilated corpses, victims of the brutal wildlife of the planet that the Kahanistanians were being sent to hunt. Not all of the graphic photos were of corpses, however; a D'rasii being eaten by a herd of OMF beasts and a few wounded victims who had lost limbs or even ribs to the animals were also featured.

"Nice picture of you," said Beckett, thumbing to the last photograph (http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i206/Kahanistan/bikini-mara.jpg) in the dossier. It had evidently been taken of her during the trek toward the base, while she was resting on a rock. Beginning to suffer from the heat and fatigue, she had stripped off her fatigues and lain down on what resembled the body of a giant dead Kh'rask to rest.

"Now, where did that come from?" asked Fulton absently. Mikolev. He's always been a bit of a prankster. I bet he gave Yuklig a copy of it too. I'm going to have to tear his nuts off for that one.

"So they have swimming water there?" asked Beckett, noticing the bikini. "I was thinking about showing some close-quarters underwater combat techniques..."

"None that's safe, which I didn't know when I got there," said Fulton coldly. "There are supposedly tentacle things in the water that'll grab anything near and drag it under, and the water's acidic."

While they were talking, the feverishly working soldiers managed to unload the bulk of their supplies in record time. Fulton decided to make a suggestion.

"You might want to requisition a few hundred extra ATGM's, grenades, magazines of incendiary tracer rounds... the plant life burns easily and the rockets are about the only thing that works on the rock people. You've got about 14 hours before you're scheduled to leave, and it looks like you've already unpacked most of your supplies."

"Thanks for the advice, Major," said Captain Beckett. He pulled out his cell and made a call to a supply depot near Najaster. A truck laden with ATGM's, grenades, and tracer rounds was on its way within the hour. It would arrive within a half hour of leaving.

"Now," said Beckett, "all we have to do is wait." They waited for the supplies to arrive so they could begin their well-informed journey into the pits of Hell.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 19:51

Above Kahanistan, the ASV Victory loomed in the blackness of space. Aboard, the last of Fulton's injured troopers were being released from the hospital bays, their mental scars erased and their horrific injuries repaired with advanced bionics indistinguishable from the real thing... except their improved performance. Transferred to a medical shuttle, they were transferred - along with a psychiatric detail - to the surface.

"Major Fulton?" queried the Medical Officer as his men directed the now healthy Kahanistani troops onto the apron nearby the next batch of troops, "I'm sorry to say that you missed the opportunity to have your injuries tended to in the fuss of transportation. If you would like to come with me, I can guarantee that in just fifteen minutes you will be feeling your old self again," he smiled, "and that's a medical promise."

Behind him, another dropship had landed, and its Loadmaster had begun supervising the loading of Beckett's equipment and men...

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 20:25

Fulton nodded. "Will I have to be made unconscious for this? There was some... disgruntlement among the troops when I was taken to the Skgorrian medical facilities." She was more than willing to take her chances with Kahanistanian medicine; her injuries were not serious.

Captain Beckett, meanwhile, was enthusiastically introducing himself to the Atopians. "Hello. Captain Aleister Beckett, the deputy commander of the Presidential Security Detachment. I'll be commanding the troops we're sending over for the next two weeks."

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 20:29

"Not at all, it will simply be a quick scan of your brain followed by one or two pills and a further brain scan. Your physical injuries are not serious but you are suffering from serious mental trauma which, if not treated, will lead to a considerable breakdown and possible suicide or insanity. Of course, if you wish, you may be accompanied by some of your comrades?"

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 20:41

She would take the Atopian's word, but she doubted her crew would. "Sergeant Dawkins?"

The man nodded and approached her.

"Care to come with me into the Atopian ship?"

It was for the sake of cooperation. The soldier nodded. "I'll come." Nothing would happen to her without the scrutiny of the loyal soldier.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 20:53

"Very well, if you'll follow me?"

Turning, the doctor strolled into the open medical bay of the medical dropship. Gesturing to a seat with what looked like a hairdresser's blow-dry machine attached, he said, "If you would sit in that - it's entirely harmless and painless I assure you."

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 21:01

Fulton sat down in the chair. It reminded her of the chair she sat in every few months or so to have her hair styled. She had always liked her hair down; it was the style of most Kahanistanian women, but she liked it long, healthy and dark. But she wasn't here to have her hair done.

"What's that?" she asked, looking up at the blow-dryer looking thing at the top of the chair. Dawkins stood behind her, ready to act if something happened to her.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 21:09

"That is a rather remarkable piece of technology. It scans your brain and identifies the areas affected by various ... diseases, traumas, the like. We can then correct the injuries using just one or two pills. In your case it appears that you have deep rooted psychological damage resulting from prolonged exposure to violence. Very common amongst soldiers. As you are not an Atopian this is all we will cure, although I would go and see a professional for help about anything else if I were you. For this, however, I will give you a single pill - take it with water, and then rest for six hours. You will retain your combat experience and any reflexes learnt, but you will no longer be troubled by the traumatic experiences. If you will stand up...?"

As he turned from the control panel, he extended his hands - in one nestled a single small white pill, and in the other he held a glass of water.

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 21:24

Hmmm... typical Atopian discrimination, Fulton thought grimly. She got up to take the pill and chug the water. She just didn't want to be around these people any more, in fact, she wouldn't shed a tear if she never had to see them again.

Dawkins was clearly angry, too, but he did nothing; the last time he spoke up he had been detained as a "Bolshevik swine and hooligan." He simply took the officer's hand and helped her to her feet.

"Let's get you back to the Palace and get some rest," he said. Fulton stood firmly on her feet.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 21:43

"Goodbye, Major," smiled the doctor, "we're not all bastards, you know. Just very different to you. Socialisation, you know? Take care and I hope never to see you again - it would mean that bad things had happened to you."

Outside, on the landing strip, Atopian loadmasters and aircrew were pushing hover-pallets loaded with equipment into the cavernous hold of an assault dropship.

Above, in the sky, loomed the vast bulk of the Victory, brought into low geostationary orbit to lessen the transit time of her shuttles...

Skgorria

16-01-2007, 22:00

Yuklig sat on the ramp of his transport, and watched as the Atopians took over loading operations. The last of the Kahanistanis and their equipment had long left the ship, and now he was left sitting here without anything to do. He looked again at the picture that a random Kahanistani soldier had given him, and smiled. Hope I see you soon Major he thought as he put the picture away.

Trinity Blood

16-01-2007, 22:02

Word of the penal colony had spread far. Word had traveled through the ITH to the CSP where it was eventually relayed to Starfleet Command where it had spawned a lively discussion about how Trinity Blood could exploit this opportunity.

"General," sighed Admiral Forrest, "I know you think this would be a great place for the MACOs to get some live fire practice done, but have you truely considered the risks of this?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I have?" groaned General Casey, "Do you honestly think the RCO is just going to set around on its duff while we wile away the time? I don't think so. They are preparing to take us out. We should be preparing to take them out and not lolly-gagging around trying to gain advances that would aide your naval forces."

"He's got a point, Forrest," broke in General West as Colonel West* watched patiently to see if a detachment of troops would be assigned for him to command on this mission or not.

"I can see that," retorted Forrest sarcastically, "yet, you can't forget the reports we've gotten of the dangers there. If any go, I suggest making it a detachment mainly composed of Methuselah and half-Methuselah at the very least. They'll have much better chance of surviving than any of the green Terrans** that just graduated. Take Augments*** if you must have humans grunts along."

"I can live with that," said Casey with a shrug.

"I give up," exclaimed Forrest as he threw his arms in the air with a humerous glint in his eyes, "you're both against me on this. Go ahead, Colonel, pick your team, following the condition agreed on of course."

"Aye, sir," responded the Colonel as he snapped a salute and marched off to hand-pick who he was going to take along.

It took some doing over the better part of the rest of the day, but Colonel West had dispatched orders to the Methuselah****, half-Methuselah, Augments, Espers*****, Elementals******, and the few Terrans he needed for this assignment.

OOC: *I've not decided if the General and the Colonel are related or not yet.
**Terrans = humans (name is derived from that of the homeworld).
***Augments: As I'm using ST tech, you can probably guess what these are. Though, due note, my current ones are evolutions of the ones from the Eugenics War era, and perhaps some from even before that, and now are enhanced using biological and technological 'improvements' that enhances the Augment to excell in the choosen field and not just selective breeding like the originals
****Methuselah: Pretty much my take on vampires as if they were a seperate species that had evolved on my planet and not undead or anything else mythical in origin.
*****Esper: What my psychics are called.
******Elementals: A sub-class of Esper that actually predates the Esper project by, at least, a thousand years (as the first ones were Methuselah that had naturally evolved the ability). Elementals control one of the five classic elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and...well, I'll leave the fifth for a surprise.
I'll post the departure for the 'penal colony' in my next post as I've got to go AFK for my next two classes now (be back in around six hours).

Kahanistan

16-01-2007, 22:32

The larger force of Kahanistanian soldiers boarded the dropship heading for the planetoid, getting ready for the trip and testing their mettle. They conversed among themselves about their speculations as to what must have happened to the mangled bodies they had received from home. Some of the wilder theories being bandied about included the idea that a Freekish assassin had mutilated the soldiers in their sleep, that fanatics among the soldiers had blown themselves up, and even that one of the Kahanistanian soldiers was a werewolf.

Some of the more sane theories prevalent were attacks by wild beasts, accidents with machinery, and getting too close to an RPG when it exploded. Other soldiers grumbled about Nazis as the first crop had, and basically criticised their government as having lost its sense of decency.

Meanwhile, back in Kahanistan, Fulton and her remaining soldiers returned to the Palace, to their homes, to hospitals, and some to the resort city of Al-Bahr in northwestern Kahanistan on the Mediterranean coast, to relax and use some vacation time. Fulton herself returned to the palace to give her report on the excursion to the Ministry of Defence.

---

DEMOCRATIC SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAHANISTAN
Office of the President
Presidential Security Detachment

The excursion to "Pact of Iron" territory was an unmitigated disaster from our landing onwards. We were encouraged by the Skgorrian soldiers to deploy in drop pods, orbitally-deployed insertion vehicles, and the one with me and nine other soldiers under my command was accidentally dropped several kilometers from the main forces, which had originally been intended to be three seperate camps, but ended up conglomerating into one due to the loss of their commander and the attacks by dangerous wildlife.

First Lieutenant Caldwell, who is by no means an unqualified officer, was simply overwhelmed by the responsibility of commanding forces far larger than anything he had ever commanded in his career, in hostile territory. Partly as a result of this, but mostly due to the sheer volume of hostile wildlife, his forces sustained roughly 35% casualties, including 25% KIA.

My own party fared little better. We would have all been killed had not Storm-General Beckenbauer of the Skgorrian Army arrived, seemingly in a psychotic rage, and proceeded to butcher the local population of Kh'rask, highly aggressive, sentient humanoid rock forms. As it was, Sergeant Kyle M. Jensen, medic, and Corporal Jenna A. Holman, radio operator, were killed in the combat zone.

We were eventually rescued by a Skgorrian medical unit, and those of us who were wounded were treated. As the medical facility was located inside of a military base, and we are widely viewed among the Pact of Iron personnel as "Bolsheviks," we were sedated before being taken in. I myself was under sedation for shrapnel wounds at the time, but when I returned after three days, I learned that Sergeant James N. Dawkins had been incarcerated by the Skgorrians as a "Bolshevik swine and hooligan" for threatening a "member of the master race." I had to resort to feminine wiles to get him released.

It turned out that he had threatened to gouge out the eyeballs and, quote, "skull fuck" one Captain Servchenko, who had been very condescending towards the Kahanistanian personnel. This language is very common among drill instructors, and Sergeant Dawkins had been a drill instructor for two years before coming to the Presidential Security Detachment; he had merely fallen back on his DI training. He and the other two soldiers who were not wounded at the time, Corporals Alexei Mikolev and Janos Kacelski, were apparently concerned that the female personnel were being sexually abused in the facility; upon their insistence, I submitted to a sexual assault examination, post-exposure prophylaxis, and emergency contraception in the medical tent by the camp physician, Captain Josiah M. Blauberg, M.D. The results of that examination are presently being sent to the military Criminal Investigative Division; results are expected in 48 to 72 hours.

At the time of my arrival in the camp, there were only three days left of training, but Lieutenant Caldwell had conducted training exercises as well as could be expected of him. I would like to recommend him for a Distinguished Service Cross in recognition of his service in that capacity. Shortly after my examination, Storm-Major Herman Yuklig, Skgorrian Special Action Division, was attacked by a prisoner near the camp and taken to our camp for treatment. While under treatment, he received notice that missiles were being fired on positions near the camp, which killed thirty-one Kahanistanian soldiers and wounded fifty-two. At this time I suffered a severe emotional shock due to seeing a soldier step on unexploded ordnance and we were withdrawn, there being only eighteen hours before we were scheduled to leave and our unit being too severely damaged to continue training.

I strongly recommend against further assignments of troops to this location; the Pact of Iron personnel are too culturally different from us to avoid the potential of a massive conflict between our troops and their more advanced military.

Signed,
Major Mara K. Fulton,
Director, Presidential Security Detachment

Skgorria

16-01-2007, 22:32

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 22:40

SIC: Room 291, ASV Victory:

A shadowy room with a shadowy figure...

"Commend the boffins for their replacement of that Major's eye. Their camera replacement is worked as expected and has enabled us to see, in real time, what she sees. She does not appear to expect anything. We have copied her report to Storm-Major Yuklig of Special Action Division, Lieutenant-General Hanse of ExInt, and the Primo's office. Our watchers are keeping tabs on the relay from the Major's new eye. The information is most useful."

Skgorria

16-01-2007, 22:51

The GR-75 had arrived back at the Gates of Berlin when a CFFS Operative approached Yuklig and handed him a flimsy.
Yuklig read it, then crumpled the flimsy and let it fall to the deck.
"Dispose of that," he whispered to the CFSS Operative who had delivered it, then left the room and kept walking until he had reached his quarters.
"Feminine wiles? Feminine wiles? All an act!" he raged, "all a bloody act!" Yuklig slammed his fist into the wall as he struggled to hold back tears, pounding bulkheads again and again as if he could crush the pain with his bare hands. He then lay down to sleep, with nothing but anguish for company.

Atopiana

16-01-2007, 23:40

Fort Frank, Governor-General's Office:

Smoke wisped up from the barrel of Frank's antique Mauser pistol as the echoes of the shot died away.

"You," she said, pointing to the stunned Lieutenant standing next to the corpse of the West Wall gunnery commander, "are now in charge of the West Wall. Go, now, and take that fool's body with you."
"Yes Ma'am!"

As he left, dragging his boss's body behind him, Frank tutted. That blood would simply not do.

"Ingrid, do you want to please me?"
"Yes Ma'am," whimpered the broken Gorobets, "any way I can."
"Then get that floor clean. I don't want to slip up on bits of brain."
"I don't have any bleach..."
"I don't want you to use bleach. I want you to use your uniform - that blood's not dried yet, after all."
"Yes Ma'am."

Kahanistan

17-01-2007, 00:02

Unlike the first crop of troops, who had come aboard a Skgorrian ship, these soldiers were traveling aboard an Atopian ship, where the protocols were likely different from what Fulton had been able to relate.

Furthermore, Captain Beckett lacked the interpersonal and diplomatic skills of his superior, and tended to be more laid back. However, the soldiers under his command had been provided with graphic photographs of what had happened to soldiers who disregarded Fulton's warning about the plants. There would be no more childish experimentation or other such tomfoolery in this command.

Beckett knocked on one of the bulkheads after the last of the supplies had been loaded aboard. "Hey, driver! When's this thing going to take off?" he called impatiently, as if talking to a slow cab driver.

Atopiana

17-01-2007, 00:19

With a sudden hiss, the bulkhead sprang back to reveal a tall, massively scarred woman. Her head was bald, one bionic eye gleaming a mad red from within a network of scar tissue. Near to this monstrous glow, her left ear was gone, replaced by a twisted lump of dead flesh out of which came a glint of metal. When she grinned, her teeth were all gold, her jaw deformed by a serious wound some years before. Her chest was lopsided, with her right hand side appearing normal - the single, small, normally proportionate breast decorated with a thick block of medal ribbons seemingly hideous next to the flat absence of its twin.

She extended her right hand, grasping Beckett's, and shaking. Its dull sheen and off-white colour suggesting a ceramic composite rather than a typical metal bionic.

"I," she rasped, "am your guide. You may call me 'Ma'am' or 'Miss', my rank is unimportant. We will be taking off as soon as the pilot has completed his pre-flight checks. I'm sure you wouldn't want to be atomised along with the spaceport if anything went wrong, now?"

Detaching herself from Becket, she stalked into the passenger compartment.

"Greetings! You have heard of the disaster that befell your comrades. I am here to reinforce what they learnt the hard way. This planet will kill you if you are not on the ball at all times. I look hideous. I assure you none of my injuries were sustained on this planet, but by Grud I've not seen a worse place. However, if you listen to me and don't fuck about you might just survive. Even if you are using disgustingly archaic equipment. I trust you have more hand-held anti-tank rockets this time. Now. You will strap in, you will shut up, and you will listen to my briefing while we transit to the Victory and thence to the planet. Understood?"

Kahanistan

17-01-2007, 00:51

This hideous woman looked strangely intimidating. "Yes, Ma'am", said the Kahanistanian Captain as he sat down and shut up. The soldiers under his command followed suit as he strapped in.

Whatever made Fulton sound so depressed, I'm sure I'll find out what it is, and what's in these nasty pictures she gave me.

They sat and waited for the woman's speech to begin.

Atopiana

17-01-2007, 01:01

As the shuttle lifted off, Ma'am didn't even flinch as her weight increased. She just started speaking...

"The planet you are about to visit contains at least four, and probably more, life-forms which will attack you on sight.

"These are as follows. One: the K'hrask, which are sentient beings made from rock. They are very hard to kill by your standards, and are what did most of the damage to your last lot. Use your anti-tank rockets on them. Stand your ground, and be disciplined. They have no ranged weapons, but their limbs are diamond-sharp and will cut you to shreds.

"Two: the D'rasii, which are calcium-shelled land crabs which are four meters tall and encased in six-inch thick bone carapace. These are preyed on by the Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg plants - yes, plants - which are your deadliest threat. Named by the unfortunate who spotted and encountered them, these are mobile plantforms that like our calcium-rich bone matter, so have a tendancy to use their spiky tendrils to rip us apart to get at our bones. They look remarkably like the local grass-analogue and must be destroyed with energy weapons or flamethrowers.

"Three, the pollovi - floating ballon-like creatures that subsist by consuming molecules in the atmosphere. They give off a coloured gas that is poisonous to humans and will kill if too much is inhaled. D'rasii seem to be immune to this, and hunt the Pollovi extensivley. Where there are Pollovi there will be D'rasii. Wear your NBC suits at all times.

"Four, the Schlurp - a large tentacled creature that inhabits the waterways and seas of this world. Named for the ominous noise it makes when it grabs humans by the orifices and drags them underwater to be violated and devoured. The water, by the way, is highly acidic. You will not be able to utilise it.

"We will be arriving on the surface at Fort Frank, the one landing zone, a domed fortress with one airlock leading to the surface guarded at all times. The walls are 4 metres thick of durasteel and duracrete supported by multiple shields and physical supports in the inside. Here you will meet Storm-Major Yuklig, your other Liason and Guide, who is from the Skgorrian Special Action Division. I am a hard arsed bitch - and you will consider me a babe in arms after meeting Yuklig, who thinks nothing of shooting babies (although he prefers to get small children with grenades, he hates wasting ammunition).

"The planet is run by the Governor General, who you will not meet. Her word is law, backed up by the Captain General of the Victory and his guns. You will remain on the planet under the care of Yuklig and I for two weeks and then you will return. Questions?"

Kahanistan

17-01-2007, 01:51

But Major Fulton seemed to like him... must be a different Yuklig, mused the Kahanistanian Captain. He knew nothing of the man other than that he had seen his commanding officer with her arm around him at the exit of the Skgorrian ship. But how many Storm-Majors can there be with the same name? Yuklig isn't exactly a very common name...

"So that's what's in all these cool gory pictures Fulton gave us," said Beckett, now unfazed; the woman's intimidation factor had worn off. "Yeah, she advised us to bring more rockets, and incendiary tracer slugs for the Ohmy... leg plants. We get it, stay away from the wildlife."

---

48 hours later

Al-Qamar, Kahanistan

Ministry of Science, Department of Exobiology

The slides that had been taken from the PoI planet arrived. The labels had apparently come off in the space environment; a note was taken by some secretary to design a new glue for space specimen labels.

Plant juice from an OMF beast was in one slide, but the scientists had no clue what it was, only that it was something alien. Another slide had what looked like living cells made of rock, apparently from a Kh'rask. A third slide had a torn membrane and remnants of a gas which might be toxic in very large quantities; a Pollovi that had been killed by an alert sentry. Luckily, scientists wore heavy space suits that offered full NBC protection when working with unfamiliar substances.

"Hey, look at this," said an assistant, a young man of about 17 with long, light brown hippie hair, a thick beard, and a tall, lanky frame. He was scanning one of the last slides, trying to identify the substances on it. "Doesn't look alien, kind of looks like those cheek scrapings they had us take in high school biology."

"What?" asked the head researcher, a pudgy, short Jewish man in his 60's with white hair and a bald spot on his crown. The chief scanned it. "What the hell... that's human." He took a closer look and thought back to his days as a general-practice physician. "That's secretions from a woman's... how the hell did this get here? Come to think of it, why is it here?"

"Dunno," said the assistant. "I wonder who the prankster is... let's get a DNA scan on it and find out what it's doing here."

The slide was sent to the Al-Qamar Police Department, where DNA testing and closer analysis was done on the sample. Not only did they identify the source of the DNA in the woman's fluids, but a rookie detective was able to deduce that it was a sexual assault examination that had gotten misplaced (and performed on research slides, suggesting either gross incompetence or a woefully undersupplied lab somewhere), and convinced his superior to order more detailed scanning to determine if a sexual attack had occurred.

Atopiana

17-01-2007, 09:18

"It sounds easy, doesn't it," she smirked, crossing her arms, "but how many of you can hear at 340Khz? Do you know what an inert Kh'rask looks like? And those are just the animals we know about. There were reports of ... things ... that killed Skgorrian Ubersoldaten.

"In case you don't know, the Ubersoldaten are four metres tall. They are built from tank armour and are essentially walking death machines. Your anti-tank weapons would do no more than scratch their paint jobs. They scare me, and," she rapped her knuckles against her head, producing a metalling thunk, "I'm not scared easily any more. Not much left to get scared.

"They die, on this planet. It is possible to survive, it is possible to get lucky and stay away from the wildlife as you put it - but it is more likely that you will not be able to. Stay sharp. This is a place where the ground can kill you and the rain can strip your flesh from your bones, after all.

"Now, while I've been yammering we've reached the Victory and have transited through Fold:Space to the penal system. In the next twenty minutes we will be planetside. Last questions before we reach the fort?"

Trinity Blood

17-01-2007, 09:32

For The Eyes Of Colonel West

It has come to my attention that you will be coming to our delightful little hellhole, how delightful. If you would be so kind as to send the numbers and disposition of the forces you are sending, then I can get permission from the Governor-General.

Toodles,

Captain Petersen, Skgorrian Air Force

OOC: Actually, I wanted the arrival to be a surprise as I wanted to see how you would respond IC to an unexpected ship(s) dropping in, but, oh well.

IC: =/\=How you were able to intercept word of our supposedly surprise visit is of concern to me. However, I will not bother with that now. As for how many I'm bringing, you'll find out when we arrive as I'm not going to discuss such matters over an open comm channel.=/\=

The NX-07, the Ex Post Facto, one of the combat varient* of the Novus Exemplar class (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o293/True_Human_Empire/Ships/cruiser_nx.jpg) cruisers, had been assigned to carry Colonel West (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o293/True_Human_Empire/Character%20Pics/ColonelWest2293.jpg) and the MACO detachement directly under his command. A wing* of Raptor class (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o293/True_Human_Empire/Ships/scout_raptor.jpg) scouts were also being sent along to transport the rest of his MACOs and to help provide cover for the NX-07 if shooting started.

The four Trinity Blood ships utilized a combination of Hypergate, aide from friendly nations with better FTL engines, and their own Warp 5 engines while en route to the penal colony.

OOC: *My combat version is easily distinguished by the nakid eye from my explorer variant because my combat varient has the same paint job (minus the Terran Empire logo) as the Mirror Universe NX class.
*Here's how it goes:
Wing=3 ships
Flight=2 Wings=6 ships
Squadron=2 Flights=12 ships
Oh, and will post arrival in next post.

Kahanistan

17-01-2007, 11:07

"No more questions," said the captain. "Drop us off. No pods this time."

Skgorria

17-01-2007, 18:35

OOC: Woops, sorry TB. Welcome onboard

IC:

Major Yuklig stepped off the shuttle onto the surface of the planetoid.
"Are you sure you want to stay here by yourself?" The question came from one of the shuttle's crew, "You know, there are all sorts of nasties here." Yuklig span around and fixed on the crewman with a withering glare,
"Yes, I do know. Perhaps you'd like to come here instead of me?" The suggestion was clearly of interest to the crewman, who swallowed in fear and gulped,
"No sir."
"Good, now piss off," and with that Yuklig turned his back on the shuttle as he strode out into the wastes. The shuttle took off and flew back to the Gates of Berlin, leaving Yuklig alone. He was roughly a few hours march from the Fort, and although he had put enough food and drink in his pack to last for the full two weeks, he didn't expect he would need it on the short trip he would be taking. Checking his compass, he worked out where the Fort was and began to walk, whistling a selection of marching songs as he went. He almost hoped it would attract some of the dangerous wildlife, he was spoiling for a fight.

Trinity Blood

17-01-2007, 19:40

OOC: Lol, looks like the Major is in a bad mood.
Oh, and don't worry about it. I'm working on building up to a Civil War anyways (this is actually part of that effort, TBH) and I can just say one of those who'll be on the side opposing my Imperial forces leaked the info.

IC: The NX-07 dropped out of warp speed fifteen light seconds from the outermost edge of the penal planetoid. The Raptors with her dropped to impulse in a formation that was basically a vertical diamond shape that skewed backwards at an upsloping angle with the NX-07 at the bottom corner.

OOC: Here's basically what it roughly looks like (the 'O' indicates a ship).
Front:
-----O
O--------O
-----O
Side:
------O
---O
O

IC: "Alright, Captain," said Colonel West as he studied the alien vessels growing bigger on the main viewscreen as the NX-07 drew ever closer, "let's see how they handle our unscheduled arrival."

"Its your show," shrugged the Captain, "though I still think this is an unwise course of action as they could respond by blowing us out of the sky."

"I doubt it," replied West, "they have advertised their desire to make money off of this place, so I doubt they would shoot first and ask questions later when a potential customer is involved."

"Good point," admitted the Captain.

Atopiana

17-01-2007, 20:58

Bridge, ASV Victory:

Xlaxons blared as the new arrivals blinked into existence. Ratings and officers calmly flicked switches and toggled buttons, double-tapping on glass panes and flicking infowindows down with eye movements.

"Captain General," began the Officer of the Watch, "unknown vessels, four, bearing towards the planet."
"Target lock, all avaliable guns. Vector in pickets five and nine. Tractor beams to full power, stop 'em in their tracks. Then hail them. Any funny business and we vape them."
"Sir."

Within seconds, tractor beams lanced out from the Victory's huge bulk, pinning the four vessels in an interlocking web of beams. Turrets smoothly turned to bring massive guns to bear on the newcomers as smaller capital ships drifted slowly but surely at .8 light towards them.

Atopian Space Force Assault Dropship 2309:

"No more questions? Very well. If you will excuse me, I must don my armour. We will be landing in," as she checked her chronometer, "ten minutes."

Trinity Blood

17-01-2007, 23:50

"Registering weapons being locked on, sir," reported the tactical officer, "should I take us to Tactical Alert?"

"No," ordered West, "polorize the hull plating if you feel you must, but keep the weapons stowed."

"Aye, sir," responded the tactical officer.

"Helm," ordered the Captain, "make no threatening moves, but take us in nice and easy into orbit. According to our orders, we'll wait until they make contact with us first before hailing any of them."

"Aye, sir," replied the Ensign at the conn.

The four Trinity Blood craft, dwarfed by the massive local ships, silently slid to a stop as far from the planetoid as the moon was from Earth due to the grip of the Atopian tractor beams.

OOC: Dimensions:
Raptor class:
Length: 100 meters
Beam: 60 meters
Height: 18 meters
Decks: 3
Crew: 12
Novus Exemplar class:
Length: 225 meters
Beam: 136 meters
Height: 33 meters
Decks: 7
Crew: 82

Kahanistan

17-01-2007, 23:53

Beckett ordered his soldiers to stand up. With 1,200 soldiers on this ship, unloading could take a while. The soldiers moved into formation.

"Now, each of us will count off, one to twelve, and we will form detachments of 100 soldiers. Each detachment will set up its own camp, we will be in radio contact if a detachment needs help, but our first order of business upon landing will be to set up camps, prepare defensive perimeters, and assign sentries, those duties will be passed to the senior officers of each detachment, you will have at least one First Lieutenant and three Second Lieutenants, the ranking officers of each detachment will set up the chains of command, standing orders, and policies for dealing with the P.O.I. personnel and any prisoners we may come across."

"Now, do not antagonise the P.O.I. personnel, this goes without saying. If one of them stops you or questions you, ask to bring a senior officer with you. If you need advanced medical care, try to avoid the forts if at all possible, there's been some bad blood with the last people who came there."

The soldiers formed into their blocks of 100, designated Alpha through Mu. By the time each block had its allotment of senior officers, it was time for the troops to land.

Atopiana

18-01-2007, 20:03

The four Trinity Blood craft, dwarfed by the massive local ships, silently slid into an orbit

OOC: Are you forgetting the tractor beams? :p

Trinity Blood

18-01-2007, 20:28

OOC: Are you forgetting the tractor beams? :p

OOC: Lol, that's what I get for posting when I'm in such a rush and half-asleep. Sorry, my bad. I'll go back in and edit the post.
Though, I'm going to need some info...

How many tractor beams? From how many angles? What kinds of ships are producing the tractor beams? Are they ST or SW tractor beams or are they from another tech tree?

Stuff like that will be needed so I can fully understand the situation so I can edit my post to make it much better than it would be if I lacked such info.

(TBH, I'm really in a rush to get to my next class, so I'll have to edit it in around 3 hours time).

Kahanistan

19-01-2007, 00:15

penal? as in "penis"? sick-o:(
http://www.p0stwh0res.com/images/howlingnoobs.jpg
(OOC: No, penal, as in "penalty", from the Latin, "poena" for "punishment." This is a prison planet with all kinds of monsters on it, though it's being taken over now by military forces who want to train troops on it by fighting the monsters. For future reference, the adjective relating to the penis is "penile.")

IC:

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Kahanistanian Presidential Palace

Major Mara Fulton was not a happy camper. She had spent the last two weeks in a hostile colony with the most vicious beasts she had ever known, seen soldiers under her command reduced to fine mist by explosive charges and torn limb from limb in the most brutal fashion by the plant life, associated with Nazis, and she was now being brought up on charges of incompetence for losing a confirmed 44% of her forces to the various hazards of the planet.

Depressed with the way her career appeared to be turning, the loss of 132 good men and women, the paranoia about sexual assault growing on her (the results had not arrived when she expected them) she had taken to the bottle - hard. She never drank on duty, being a conscientious officer and a responsible commander, but as soon as her shift ended and she was home, after feeding her daughter, Kathy, she was in bed, drunk and crying. The one-year-old was too young to understand, but she knew that there was something wrong with her mother, the way she held her was different, the way she talked was different, and the quiet crying, later degenerating into drunken wailing, was enough to send the small child crying hysterically that night. Mara never knew...

When she woke up that morning, her child was finally fast asleep, having exhausted herself. Mara, on the other hand, had a roaring headache from her drinking binge. She called a cab to take her daughter to preschool and herself to her friend's apartment. They would talk about the impending trial and hopefully, Mara would be able to pull through.

The cab arrived and Mara walked into the apartment building complex, entered the elevator, and punched the keys for the seventy-third floor. After the five-minute lift and four Midols later, she found her way to her destination, where she knocked on the door.

---

Drusilla Aetia had just finished getting dressed, relatively conservatively for her, when she heard a rap on the door. She answered it quickly, after grabbing her M-240 medium machine gun from the mantle and unlatching the four deadbolts that were on the door, opening it to her friend.

"Mara, you look a mess. What happened?" asked Drusilla. Mara looked hung over... severely so. Mara doesn't drink that often, and knows not to overdo it, especially with the baby. She set the machine gun down on the floor and welcomed Mara in before closing and quadruple-locking the door again.

I'm the security officer, but she's even more paranoid about security than I am, Mara thought wryly as she sat next to Drusilla. She began to relate her troubles to her friend.

"It all started when I went to that Skgorrian colony," she started. "The creatures there, there are bone eating plants there, rock-looking people, and all kinds of Nazis there. I was stranded away from my forces for most of the exercise because of some system malfunction, and we all got hit, the troops suffered heavy casualties on what was supposed to be a training exercise." She decided not to get too graphic because not only could she not bear to discuss the traumatic events, but because she felt her civilian friend, despite her tough exterior, would not be able to handle it.

"Anyway, I got a notice in the mail saying I was going to be court martialed for dereliction of duty." She showed her friend the letter.

DEMOCRATIC SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAHANISTAN
Ministry of Defence

To: Mara K. Fulton, Major, ID RG-14081978-D
Re: Charges relating to training operation in POI colony

Owing to the massive casualties sustained in the training exercise in which your forces participated in the POI colony earlier this month, it has been decided to bring charges of dereliction of duty against you for the deaths of 132 servicemembers and wounding of a further 62, out of 300 troops.

Pending the resolution of this case, you will be suspended with pay from all duties. Your duty as director of Presidential Security will be held in the interim by 1LT Moses H. Caldwell.

A military attorney will be appointed for your defence, and you may employ as many military or civilian attorneys as you wish at state expense, as per the Military Criminal Defence Act, 1999.

Should you have any further questions, feel free to contact General Khalid al-Zamrati, the presiding judge. Your court date is scheduled for 22 January 2007 at 1100 hours.

Signed,
General Nora Kasagawa,
Minister of Defence

General Mohammed al-Barzani,
Judge Advocate General

---

Drusilla was almost livid. "Dereliction of duty? Sounds like they're looking for someone to scapegoat for the deaths of a hundred and some people in a horrible fashion, certainly you filed some sort of report?"

Mara opened her laptop and showed Drusilla a copy of her report. Drusilla read it over quickly. "Looks like you weren't even there when most of the dead were killed. Let's go downtown, get something to eat and maybe something for you to wear to the trial."

"I'll go in my uniform, thanks. But I'm sure up for something besides cold bean curd and dried-out asparagus MRE's," she replied.

The two women descended the elevator, crossed a footbridge thirty stories high, and entered the parking tower to Drusilla's car, actually a Humvee she had "liberated" during the Freekish VX bombardment of the northwestern city of Al-Bahr. She had jumped into a briefly unattended vehicle and simply driven off in it. After her ex-husband was killed by the Freeks, his head tied to a truck, Drusilla had lived out the rest of the war constantly armed and had fought for the fanatical nationalist General Abdullah Hassan al-Ghazi (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Abdullah_Hassan_al-Ghazi) until a surrender was forced. She never answered the door without the M-240 that had been in the Humvee's back since the Freeks had gone door to door confiscating weapons in Najaster after the surrender. Mara had suffered too; the father of her child had gone to plant a nuclear device in the Freekish lines and never returned, she was convinced he had suffered Puritania, but she never knew for sure.

Mara and Drusilla rode in the Humvee, arriving ten minutes later at an Amestrian-style restaurant in Kahanistan. There was a sticker from the Ministry of Health that read, "THIS FACILITY DOES NOT SERVE HUMAN MEAT."

"Don't tell me that they're actually pandering to those fanatics," said Mara incredulously. Ever since General al-Ghazi's book On the Amestrians and their Lies had hit Kahanistanian bookstores, the Ministry of Health had received numerous complaints about Amestrian restaurants serving what extremists claimed to be human flesh. The Health Ministry had staged a cursory investigation and given out certifications to attempt to prevent a mass boycott of Amestrian businesses.

"Mara. You're writing your master's thesis on On the Amestrians and their Lies. You should understand better than anyone the barbaric nature of Amestria."

"I do, enough to know that it's all a load of BS, like the claims Arab fanatics here used to make about Jews drinking blood, the claims my grandfather still makes." Mara's grandfather on her mother's side was an 87-year-old Arab who had fought Jews in 1948 and still clung adamantly to his Jew-hating beliefs; he had used all sorts of racial epithets about Jews around Mara until she was sixteen and had told him to knock it off, having made Jewish friends at the Academy.

"Think what you want, but I'm not getting any meat here," said Drusilla. They entered and sat down, where the waiter greeted them immediately. They ordered quicker than usual meals, Drusilla a large slab of Neufchatel cheese with mineral water and Mara a Coq au Vin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq_au_Vin), which prompted comments from Drusilla about the blood. They were there more to talk than to eat, and Amestrian food was seen in Kahanistan as something sophisticated. While it was above the simpler tastes of most Kahanistanians, the panache was sufficient to prevent the massive driveouts that the rampant anti-Amestrianism following the 2006 riots had caused to other segments of Amestrian or Amestrian-derived businesses in Kahanistan.

Neither of the two women ate much during the dinner, they mostly talked about the absolute unfairness of the proceedings, how a female Kahanistanian officer had stridden into court over a year previously flagrantly displaying her cleavage and getting off, and Mara crossly reminding Drusilla that her frame was not conducive to her pulling something like that even if she wanted to. Mara's attention was focused on something else at the moment, though; she was writing to Storm-Major Yuklig, who had told her that he would be willing to testify in her defence at the trial. While Lieutenant Caldwell, Sergeant Dawkins, and other Kahanistanian soldiers had made similar promises, Drusilla had mentioned that a perceived hostile witness such as a Skgorrian commander would be a valuable asset as he would have nothing to gain by supporting her side.

---

Major Yuklig,

I'm safely back in Kahanistan, I asked someone in the Space Division to send this. I'm sending attachments of my court martial notice with this, so you can understand the basics of how our legal system works. My trial is in a few days, and it might be some time before the Space Division can send this letter, it's of low priority to them.

Basically, they're trying me because of the high casualty rate in what was supposed to be a training exercise; from what I could figure, the casualty count was evidence of dereliction of duty. I'll understand if you're too busy to come to Kahanistan to testify for me, but would it be possible to send a written statement to the Ministry of Defence? It would be a big help to my defence if you would. Thanks in advance.

How have your injuries healed? Has your memory come back yet? I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Mara

Atopiana

19-01-2007, 00:46

OOC: I'm going to need some info...

How many tractor beams? From how many angles? What kinds of ships are producing the tractor beams? Are they ST or SW tractor beams or are they from another tech tree?

OOC: Tractor beams: Well, given the size of the Victory and the presence of its Attendant Fleet... 25 on each of your vessels. They're souped-up Star Wars ones, as my crazy ultra-SF kit appears mostly in the little things.

SIC:

K Division Communications Room:

"Look at this," grunted the man, "that EyeSpy we planted picked it up. Thank Grud for quantum comms, eh?"
"Heh," whispered the woman, "so Yuklig'll be getting a summons, eh? Right. Let's pass this on to him, shall we? That Kahanistani officer must be really bloody stupid if she thinks that a letter will span, what, 25 light years?"
"I know. Backwards bolshevik bastards, the lot of 'em. Well, I'll blurt this to Yuklig."
"Alright."

OOC: NOTE: I have just sent Yuklig the letter that Mara was writing, which my intelligence agents saw as she was writing it thanks to the camera that my spies placed in her eye during her time in the Fort's medical facility. She's not been raped tho' :p

IC:

Assault Dropship 2309:

"Right," boomed the speakers on her helmet, "out you go!"

Throwing herself out of the rear doors which the loadmaster had lowered, Ma'am's armour immediately shifted from its standard dull grey to the chameleonic patterns. Effectively, she was invisible to the naked eye... and to several other kinds of detector.

As she touched down, she turned to watch the Kahanistanis as the Dropship finally settled onto the ground. Her scanners reported nothing nearby, and the plateau of rock was devoid of grasses...

Atopiana

19-01-2007, 01:32

(It's a computer file, she's got a laptop. Somehow managed to leave that detail out. *facepalms.*)

I assumed as much, but even at lightspeed it'll take 25 years to get to Yuklig who will by then be dead. :p

"Good start," boomed Ma'am as she ghosted over to the Captain before returning her suit to its grey tones, "night will fall in thirteen of your hours. It is currently 07:02:30 in the morning. We are now on a 40 hour day. Enjoy!"

Kahanistan

19-01-2007, 01:33

(It's a computer file, she's got a laptop. Somehow managed to leave that detail out. *facepalms.*)

The soldiers proceeded to file out of the ship, splitting into their respective detachments and moving to settle the twelve groups into a three-by-four grid of camps one-half kilometer apart. It would take several hours for the groups to arrive at their camp spots to begin to set up camp...

Atopiana

19-01-2007, 01:35

OOC:

What the hell? Our posts are switched!? :confused:

Trinity Blood

19-01-2007, 01:53

OOC: Tractor beams: Well, given the size of the Victory and the presence of its Attendant Fleet... 25 on each of your vessels. They're souped-up Star Wars ones, as my crazy ultra-SF kit appears mostly in the little things.

OOC: Thanks for the intel. Sorry about being so anal about my posts.
Speaking of which, I went back and edited mine to include your tractor beams.

Atopiana

19-01-2007, 02:08

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"Unidentified vessels! Identify yourselves!"

Trinity Blood

19-01-2007, 02:32

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"Unidentified vessels! Identify yourselves!"

OOC: *Snickers* Now I can run through the same thing I did with CW in regards to you not indicating a specific language. Don't you just love first contacts where you can insult someone and get away with it until they learn the lanuage?

IC: "Receiving transmission," reported the comm officer, "checking language against our database."

"I don't like this," stated the tactical officer with a frown, "we should ready weapons in case we need to break free from this infernal tractor beams in a hurry."

"No," responded West in his most athorative tone, "keep the weapons off-line. If we activate them, it'll most likely be construed as a hostile act and we would be blown six ways to Sunday before we could do anything."

"But they started it," whined the tactical officer.

"ENOUGH!" roared the Captain.

"Can't find the language they used in our records, sir," reported the comm officer.

"Ask them to reply in a language we know," ordered the Captain.

The following was transmitted in all known languages*:

=/\=Alien vessel, please retransmit message in a different language. We would prefer if you were able to use one of those this message is being sent in.=/\=

OOC: *Basically, all RL Earth languages (due to my homeworld being my take on an alternate history Earth) plus any I picked up from Ri-an (Ri-anese, for example).
Oh, and this will probably be my last post for a few hours as I'll be AFK.

Atopiana

19-01-2007, 02:40

OOC: *Snickers* Now I can run through the same thing I did with CW in regards to you not indicating a specific language. Don't you just love first contacts where you can insult someone and get away with it until they learn the lanuage?

OOC: Shit, good point. :p I forgot this wasn't Star Trek :p

IC:

"We are speaking and transmitting in Russian, and have always done so. If you prefer we can use German. Now. The question remains. Who are you, what is your business here, and are you Bolsheviks?"

Trinity Blood

19-01-2007, 19:08

OOC: Shit, good point. :p I forgot this wasn't Star Trek :p

IC:

"We are speaking and transmitting in Russian, and have always done so. If you prefer we can use German. Now. The question remains. Who are you, what is your business here, and are you Bolsheviks?"

OOC: Lol, and ironically, I do use Star Trek tech.

IC: =/\=We are now transmitting in all known regional dialects of Russian. Feel free to pick the one that you feel suits you best.

As for your questions, we represent the Empire Of Trinity Blood. It is doubtful that you have heard of us, but I wouldn't doubt that word of our Constantine Space Port has made it out this far from its location.

Now, why don't you answer a question for us. What does the term 'Bolsheviks' refer to?=/\=

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 00:29

Homefront

Mara knew that the transmission would take some time, she figured days, before her transmission got to Yuklig. She was also working under the assumption that the PoI had some way of detecting far-off transmissions, as they had responded to her government's inquiry regarding using the penal colony as a training ground.

Not seriously expecting him to actually come in for her, she waited patiently at home for a reply, and ironed and washed her dress uniform for the trial that would take place in a few days. She was confident she would be acquitted in any case, far more so than when she had sent the letter. She had done nothing wrong, no one would speak against her, and she just... looked innocent.

Belatedly, the sexual assault tests came back to her. They had tested negative, and she was on the telephone talking to someone from the Ministry of Defence about the results; there was no cause for alarm, no evidence she'd been mistreated and no reason to start an international incident.

---

The training ground

Captain Aleister Beckett and his detachments had arrived at their destinations, a set of twelve plots of land around which they proceeded to dig huge trenches deep enough to trap Kh'rasks and Ubersoldaten, not that they expected to fight the latter. The six-meter pits were intended to trap the fabled beings which had been able to kill the powerful mech-warriors, should they attack the camps, which now consisted mainly of gatherings of tents surrounding an ad hoc administrative center, composed of a command tent, a medical tent, a deep latrine pit, and a machine gun nest intended to protect the interior of the camp.

The first sentries had begun their shift, shooting with incendiary tracer rounds any vegetation, especially that which moved suspiciously, and preparing to dig in for the long haul.

(Mara's dress uniform is the uniform she's wearing in the pic on the NSWiki, a green long-sleeved uniform shirt with a blue vest and trousers.)

Atopiana

20-01-2007, 15:47

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 16:41

"Affirmative. Our forces have banned flamethrowers as inhumane years ago, and we were not anticipating a need for them when we came here to train. We had some incendiary rounds when the last crop was here, they proved effective, and a larger number were brought here this time, along with more rockets."

The pits were very deep, and the combat engineers had bridges for crossing the trench to perform reconnaissance operations. The bridges could simply be withdrawn to deny alien access to the camps.

"By the way, where's Major Yuklig? You said he'd be greeting us on the surface?"

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 16:52

A solitary black-uniformed figure approached the perimeter of one of the Kahanistani camps, sabre in hand and walking with a slight limp. His face, hands and clothing were covered with dirt and other foul-smelling stains. A large cut ran down his right cheek and a large piece of his lower-right trouser leg was missing, under which a blood-soaked bandage could be seen.
"Why hello there!" he called out, waving enthusiastically at the sentries who would undoubtedly be training their weapons on him soon. "Storm-Major Yuklig reporting, where can I find your CO?"

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 17:04

"He's in this camp," said the sentry, lowering his weapon now that Yuklig had identified himself. "What happened to you? You look like hell. Let's get you to the medical tent and get those wounds taken care of." He extended a combat engineer's bridge for Yuklig to cross.

"You're lucky, there are eleven other camps, we're training to fight in smaller units now. We don't usually fight in big blocks of several hundred troops, we're just palace guards, after all."

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 17:13

"Fantastic!" beamed Yuklig as he sheathed his sabre and walked into the camp. "The reason I look less than pristine is that I've been in the wastes for roughly a day trekking towards your position using nothing but my sabre for protection," he smiled wearily as he patted the scabbard in which his sword rested. "You see, you chaps are functioning on a lower technology level than us in the PoI, so if you can function in this environment then why shouldn't the New Man? So I've left my blaster in the holster and not fired it once. Ran across a few beasties, including a bunch of those damned OMFs. I'm man enough to admit I tripped over a rock and landed on a rather hungry specimen that decided my leg was lunch. Anyway, enough idle chitter-chatter, lead me to your CO first, then someone can change my bandage and complaing that valuable medical supplies are being wasted on Nazis," he laughed, clapping the sentry on the shoulder. "Lead on, I'll follow behind."

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 17:38

What happened to the guy who likes blowing up little babies with grenades? The sentry decided that it was just baseless slander and walked the Storm-Major to the medical tent, radioing to his Captain where he was going and another sentry was dispatched.

"We've got the Storm-Major, he's injured. Seems to be non-critical, we'll check him out, though."

"I'm on my way," said Beckett's voice over the radio. "Meet me at the medical tent."

The camp doctor examined Yuklig's injuries. He was a different doctor than the one who had examined Yuklig and Fulton before, an older man who had apparently been a civilian physician who joined the military later in life. This was evidenced by the fact that he preferred to be called "Doctor" rather than "Captain."

"These are pretty nasty injuries, not serious though," said the doctor, wiping the blood off with an alcohol pad before putting iodine in the wounds and scrapes. He then checked the Storm-Major's leg to see that it wasn't broken, then bandaged the injuries with a fresh strip of sterile gauze. He gave the Storm-Major a vitamin pill to take. "Vitamins. It'll help you heal faster."

A Kahanistanian officer with the rank of a Captain entered the tent and extended his hand to the Skgorrian officer. "Captain Aleister Beckett, commander of this expedition," he said by way of introduction.

Atopiana

20-01-2007, 17:44

"Ah, Storm-Major," boomed Ma'am, extending her armoured hand, "pleased to see you again! The name's Frank, Anna Frank. We all look the same in these Captain suits, no shame if you don't recognise me. Anyway, we can talk about old times later on, at the moment we need to make a tour of the camp and make sure they're not doing anything too silly."

Trinity Blood

20-01-2007, 17:56

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"You feign ignorance of the scourge of Bolshevism? Then you are either lucky or fools! All right-thinking people are aware that the Red Menace threatens the very existence of the human race with its vicious lies regarding the impossible utopia, and the equality of the weak with the strong. Now. What is your business in-system? This is a penal colony and training ground. Do you have prisoners you wish to bring to the penal colony? Do you have troops you wish to train against some of the most abhorrent alien monsters yet found?"

=/\=We still don't know what you are referring to with the term 'Bolshevism'. As you would probably eventually figure out, we don't have the same cultural references as you, hence we may know it, but only by a different name. If you would tell use what it means, we may be able to tell you more accurately if we know it or not.

As for why we are here......that would be a matter intended for dicussion with someone in charge and not a low-level comm officer. So, put your superior on.=/\=

"Now this is fun," smirked the Captain.

"You've got that right," replied West, "these guys are just too easy."

OOC: Yes, I know its a bit provocative in nature, but that was done on purpose (IC'ly and OOC'ly). West and the Captain are having a good laugh at how apparently easy it is for your guys to have their buttons pushed.

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 18:52

"Many thanks Doctor" said Yuklig as he swallowed the pill. He was feeling much better for having the bandage changed - the last thing he wanted was for it to get infected and display weakness in front of the Kahanistanis. Yuklig then shook Beckett's hand and replied, "Storm-Major Herman Yuklig, Special Action Division, pleased to meet you" with a smile. "Were the pits your idea?"

When he saw Ma'am, he stood up and saluted, then shook her hand. "Frank, you old devil! It's been a while since that time of the Daggership hasn't it?" he remincised, remembering their boarding action against The Horde. "Lead on, I've already seen some of this camp, looks rather decent," the Storm-Major observed as he straightened his cap.

Atopiana

20-01-2007, 18:56

OOC: Yes, I know its a bit provocative in nature, but that was done on purpose (IC'ly and OOC'ly). West and the Captain are having a good laugh at how apparently easy it is for your guys to have their buttons pushed.

OOC: A dangerous game... ;)

IC:

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"I am Captain-General of this fleet. I command this system. Bolshevism is also known as communism, socialism, democracy," then, after a brief whispering, "yes, and zionism, thank you Number One. It is also called anarchism or third way-ism. However, it seems to me that you do not appreciate the gravity of your situation. The fourth vessel in your formation will now suffer the results of this insolence. Gunners - battery seventy-three alpha - fire at will."

With that, an 800 metre long section of the Victory's hull flashed a pale green. 200 super-heavy turbolasers flashed their incandescent beams across the void and into the targeted vessel...

Training Camp:

"Indeed it has, Yuklig, indeed it has. Those were the days, eh? Well, if you'll come with me we can have a gander while Captain Beckett amuses himself checking the fortifications." So saying, Frank moved off into the centre of the camp.

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 19:03

"Yes, the pits were my idea, after Ms. Frank mentioned there are things here that can kill a four-metre tall Ubersoldat."

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 19:16

Bridge, 'Gates of Berlin'

All over the multi-kilometre battle station, alarms were blaring.
"The Atopians just opened up!" yelled the Watch Officer, "All crews to Quarters! Signal the Air Force! Raise shield, arm weapons and close bulkheads. Don't fire yet!" Energy surges could be detected as the Golan-II station readied itself for the worse...

Training Camp

"Damn good idea man, better hope they can't climb. Why don't you toss a few mines down there to sweeten the deal?" He continued to follow Ma'am to the center of the camp, wondering what she wanted.

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 19:28

We would if we had mines. I'll have to have someone talk to Major Fulton about that when the troops rotate back. The Captain pondered the idea as the Storm-Major began to leave. Beckett would be there for four weeks, but his troops would spend two weeks there before rotating out. They would be the ones to talk to her about land mines. He did not know about his comrade's turn for the worse legally.

The sentries did, however, have standing orders to pour fire from their assault rifles, grenade launchers, and rockets on anything that fell into the pit that was unfamiliar and large enough to present a credible threat. Maybe I can lure some Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg beasts down there, feed them with D'rasii or something, Beckett began to think.

Atopiana

20-01-2007, 19:32

"Mines! So simple, yet so effective. Perhaps spikes to dissuade 'em from climbing up as well. Oh," called Frank over her shoulder as she strode off with Yuklig, "you do know the Pollovi fly, right?"

As they reached the center of the camp, she stopped.

"Well, this is their camp. What do you think of it? It wouldn't even slow down Kreigsmarine, I think - let alone Ubersoldaten..."

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 20:17

"Well, the camp seems to be mainly designed to defend against various Horrible Monsters. I'm guessing the others have a similar layout," he ventured as the scratched at his cheek. The scab was beginning to itch, a good sign as that meant it was healing. "The pits might slow down the Kriegsmarine, but wouldn't stop them. And as for Ubersoldaten, does anything slow them down?"

Kahanistan

20-01-2007, 20:55

The Kahanistanians knew the Pollovi flew. They did not consider them a significant threat, however, as they could be shot from long range with usually fatal results, and if there were simply too many of them, the soldiers did have gas masks.

Some of the camp commanders got the idea of waiting for Pollovi to float near the pits that surrounded the camps and then shoot them, in order to lure D'rasii into the pits where they could be killed and used as bait for the Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg beasts. Filling the pits with these vile beings would certainly make moving around at night highly perilous, and they would definitely ensure any D'rasii wandering about met a very painful death. The only questionable factor was whether or not they would be effective against the Kh'rask, but even if they weren't, a Kh'rask trapped in a six-meter deep pit was viewed as a minimal threat and could be shot at leisure with a rocket launcher to the head.

The Hellions... the Hellions were the reason the pits were dug so deep, deeper than the height of an Ubersoldat. The Kahanistanians hoped that the Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg beasts would find the Hellions very tasty. They were not sure what the Hellions were, only that they were capable of beating up four-metre tall war mechs. That was enough to convince the commanders that they must be huge, and if they had bones, enough calcium to feed an entire plantation of Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg beasts.

Trinity Blood

20-01-2007, 22:23

OOC: A dangerous game... ;)

OOC: Lol. Well, it last as long as is safe. Its also got the IC purpose of judging how you'll react under stress stimuli to see if you would have the potential to be given a simple proposal (if you want to know what it is, you'll just have to wait as I'm not just going to blurt it out OOC'ly but leave it for an IC surprise).

IC:

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"I am Captain-General of this fleet. I command this system. Bolshevism is also known as communism, socialism, democracy," then, after a brief whispering, "yes, and zionism, thank you Number One. It is also called anarchism or third way-ism. However, it seems to me that you do not appreciate the gravity of your situation. The fourth vessel in your formation will now suffer the results of this insolence. Gunners - battery seventy-three alpha - fire at will."

With that, an 800 metre long section of the Victory's hull flashed a pale green. 200 super-heavy turbolasers flashed their incandescent beams across the void and into the targeted vessel...

OOC: Ouch, man. Good thing I had a plan in case of this and that my Raptors are so easy to replace.

IC: =/\=Arrogance and egos have no place in diplomacy. Truely, not a very nice way to greet potential paying customers. Our mission here was classified by our government, so, according to SOP, I saw no reason in informing one of your lower officers or anyone else that could be too many in the know.

We are here for a live fire exercise on the surface, as your junior surmised.

As for our government, we are not any of those you mentioned. Our Empress leads an aristocratic nation. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't care about the common folks. Many of them have risen to positions of power instead of one of the nobility simply by being more qualified for the job.=/\=

Raptor 25 pitched and yawed as the first bolts in the salvo struck her hull. Though, at the first sign of incoming fire, the other Raptors and the NX-07 did an emergency beam out of the twelve crew members aboard her. The now over-crowded ships were able to get the last one off just before the first bolt hit. After around a dozen blasts, she went up in a flash as her M/AM core lost containment. The shockwave from the Raptor's warp core breach shook the near-by surviving Trinity Blood vessels, causing some damage, and continued on towards the planetoid and the ships and stations in orbit. It would have dissapated quite a bit over the distance, but it would still pack enough punch to short out severel minor systems of the lead Atopian Star Destroyer and less on the ships beyond that.

=/\=Oh, and you're going to be needing to compensate us for the loss of our ship. Or would you rather take this up in international court? You'll be getting our bill.=/\=

The last part was broadcast on all frequencies and channels in all known languages for it to be on the record of every nation represented in the area at that point in time.

Atopiana

20-01-2007, 22:57

OOC: Calling the Captain-General of an Atopian Fleet a 'junior officer' is a really dim thing to do ;)

IC:

Bridge, ASV Victory:

Sighing, the Captain-General waved away a flimsy with damage reports from the nearer, smaller escort vessels. Nothing too serious would have happened, they were all built to take multi-teraton yield poundings, and were well shielded from energy bursts.

"You are in no place to demand anything. You are all under arrest pending investigation by the Special Action Division, and, furthermore, your vessels will be impounded until then. We consider your unannounced arrival in-system and your subsequent behaviour a breach of contract and are responding as such. Do not attempt to try to escape - the tractor beams will rip your vessels apart, and at any rate, the Interdiction field being produced by my ship will prevent any attempt at FTL travel.

"In addition, you will lay down your arms and surrender peacefully. I assure you that we will not hesitate to use lethal force in subduing any who resist. Any attempt to use teleportation devices again - we noticed, yes - will be met with the instant destruction of all of your ships."

Skgorria

20-01-2007, 23:21

Yuklig took a moment to send the following message to Major Fulton:

Dear Mara,

I am pleased to hear that you are doing well given the circumstances. My memories have returned, I remember now that I am Storm-Major Herman Yuklig of Skgorria and the Pact of Iron. I also remembered that my favourite dish is fish. Do you like fish?

My inuries have healed, but I picked up some new ones courtesy of an OMF beast. I went trekking in the wastes with just my sabre and the damned thing got the jump on me, hence the late reply to your correspondance. My apologies.

Sadly I cannot come and testify, but I will happily send a statement. I'm currently nursemaiding the new batch - wet behind the ears, but they will do.

As for these ludicrous charges, well you can put me on the record as saying that whoever dreamt these charges up is an utter tosser and should be shot. I'll give them a good piece of my mind, I will. To have the nerve to complain about your stellar performance given the odds you faced - why, its everything thats wrong with everything that is not National Socialism!

Write back soon and let me know how things are going.

Yours,
Herman

Sighing, he then sent his official statement. Heh, this will go down well.

Dear Khalid al-Zamrati, Nora Kasagawa, Mohammed al-Barzani and any other idiots who feel that Major Mara Fulton is less than an exemplary officer.

You lot certainly have guts, don't you, to accuse someone of deriliction of duty when you have no idea of the circumstances? "Meh meh meh, I'm a bureaucrat who can't take a few losses" or "Meh meh meh, I'm a desk-bound soldier who has to make up the numbers to my bosses". You make me sick, you desk-riding pencil pushing small-brained lawyers.

Why don't you come over to the Planetoid and examine the circumstances? Why don't you come to here, where the vegetation itself is alive and eats you? Why don't you come and face the Kh'rasks, whom even we in the Pact of Iron treat with a degree of respect and we have fucking laser guns. That's right, you don't want to because your little shiney buttons might get a speck or a stain - oh noes!

Major Fulton deployed by drop-pod, and her drop pod landed several kilometers away from the others This ocurred because of a technical fault on the part of a Junior Deckhand in the Skgorrian Air Force, and appropriate disciplinary action has been taken. Major Fulton didn't choose for this to happen, and there is no reason why she should. So, I guess that puts a damper on part of your "dereliction of duty" charge, Mr Shit-For-Brains or whoever dreamt up these charges.

She then went to the Fort along with the rest of the pod's survivors for treatment. She even made a hard choice in regards to one of her soldier's health, and one that I applaud. Afterwards, she returned to the camp and resumed command. The deaths as a result of the Atopian missile strike were hardly Major Fulton's fault, as I was only warned of them a few minutes before impact and Major Fulton did everything she could to withdraw her troops from harms way. I asked her if she wanted to withdraw from the exercise early, and she did so to prevent further casualties. Doesn't sound very much like someone who doesn't look after their troops, does it? No, it sounds like a brave and dedicated soldier who did her best to perform in an extremely hostile environment in which troops with far more advanced weaponry and training rarely venture.

I am proud of the time I served with Major Mara Fulton, she is a credit to the Human Race despite her Bolshevik leanings, and if any of you retards had half of her guts, you'd come to the Planetoid and try the same. Through trial by fire she and her troops have emerged stronger, whilst you'll just sit there and jack off about your fancy new offices.

Yours insultingly,

Storm-Major Herman Yuklig

PS:You all fucking suck.

Kahanistan

21-01-2007, 00:29

Najaster, Kahanistan
Fulton's Apartment

Fulton read the letter from the Storm-Major and smiled happily. She would write back after the trial in a few days.

Meanwhile, she managed to contact a civilian attorney well versed in Kahanistanian military law, one Dr. Julius Tiberius Camellus. He had agreed to take on her case; after only a cursory reading of the indictment, he felt confident that it would have no merit if her report contained even one iota of truth.

In fact, he was so confident that he felt that he could win her case drunk off his ass. So Dr. Camellus proceeded to visit every bar in Najaster to go on the great ancestor of all benders. Luckily, he had the wisdom to walk to his first bar so he would not be tempted to drive to the next.

---

Defence Ministry, Najaster, Kahanistan

Defence Minister Nora Kasagawa received a copy of the Storm-Major's letter. She read it once, then twice, then three times. Nobody who knew her would accuse her of cowardice, not since her rise to prominence during the Freekish invasion of Kahanistan, when she had commanded troops defending the city of Al-Bahr, and risen to shortly thereafter become Defence Minister after the incumbent al-Ghazi was driven from power for his aggression and anti-Amestrianism.

I'd like to show that punk just who he's talking to, the Defence Minister fumed. Go on that damned planet myself just to meet with him. She did not take that kind of accusation lying down. On the other hand, she was 54 years old and not particularly capable of fighting, though she could still shoot. However, Kahanistanian Defence Ministers had commanded troops from the front before, and Kasagawa would not be the first in decades not to.

Personally, the Defence Minister believed the charges to be baseless; the decision to prosecute was made by the Judge Advocate General, General al-Barzani. It was he who had seen the fatalities as evidence of command incompetence and ordered the prosecution. General al-Zamrati was merely a judge; he was impartial at the time and his decision would only arrive after the trial. He thus lacked the outrage to reply as General Kasagawa had.

Kasagawa composed a reply, and sent it along the same channels the government had used to contact the colony before. She was angry enough after the insults and a glass of brandy to forgo all attempts at diplomacy.

---

DEMOCRATIC SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAHANISTAN
Ministry of Defence

All right. First off, it's standard procedure to order a court-martial whenever there's this kind of casualty rate on a training exercise. I personally see no reason to doubt Major Fulton's side of events, and I do not give orders to court-martial people. That is done by the Judge Advocate General upon receiving what he deems to be evidence of wrongdoing or incompetence.

Second, I have fought against terrors you would piss yourself to imagine; armored men with heavy machine guns, the feared Freekish Sentinels, and the barbaric, drug-crazed anarchist animals of MassPwnage, who ignore repeated efforts at diplomacy.

Third, I am more than willing to come up there and train the third batch of troops in two weeks, I'd hate to deny Captain Beckett his command training. Since I so deeply resent your accusations of cowardice (accusations that I, as someone who has served in this military in numerous capacities over the past 30 years, do not take lightly) I am more than willing to take two weeks off to go up there and fight these creatures.

Signed,
General Nora Kasagawa,
Minister of Defence

---

She hit the send key, sending it to the Space Division, who would transmit it to the P.O.I. The Defence Minister was willing to do what it took to show that the Kahanistanian military was not led by cowards, and to un-sully the good name of the Soviet Republic, which she saw as being gravely insulted by the Skgorrian officer. A little more civilised than dueling, I suppose... I'm not trying to kill anyone for insulting me, just proving him wrong. She would also show the people that she still had some balls.

Skgorria

21-01-2007, 00:55

To: General Poopoopants, Minister of Defence Against The Dark Arts

Fantastic! A transport is on the way to your office to pick you up. See you here for fun and games - I have some suprises for you.

Yours,

Herman

"Oi, Victory" Yuklig ordered into the commlik, "send a transport to Kahanistan to pick up the Defence Minister, he or she is coming here for some one on one time with me." Yuklig could not repress a savage grin.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 01:01

Port Launch Bay 3214, ASV Victory:

Within twenty minutes of the message being received, a shuttle had been dispatched to Kahanistan.

Kahanistan

21-01-2007, 01:28

The Kahanistanian Defence Minister was still pacing the corridors of the Ministry angrily when an aide stopped her.

"Defence Minister. There's a weird spacecraft looking thing around here, hovering around, I think it's going to land on the roof. You must have pissed somebody off with that letter."

The aide snickered at the thought of the enraged Defence Minister confronting these Nazis. This is going to be gold. He waited for the angry woman to trudge off to where the shuttle was.

---

The Atopians were greeted by a tall Japanese woman in her 50's, about average frame for her height, with long black hair and a furious expression; she was still in a nasty mood about the Skgorrian insult. She had not expected the response so soon; she had thought it would be with the next batch of troops. She greeted the Atopians coldly.

"I am General Nora Kasagawa, the Minister of Defence." She spoke flatly; if she had not, she would have sounded quite rude.

Trinity Blood

21-01-2007, 10:12

OOC: Calling the Captain-General of an Atopian Fleet a 'junior officer' is a really dim thing to do ;)

OOC: I was refering to the comm officer who first answered. Though, if that was the Captain-General, my bad.

IC:

Bridge, ASV Victory:

Sighing, the Captain-General waved away a flimsy with damage reports from the nearer, smaller escort vessels. Nothing too serious would have happened, they were all built to take multi-teraton yield poundings, and were well shielded from energy bursts.

"You are in no place to demand anything. You are all under arrest pending investigation by the Special Action Division, and, furthermore, your vessels will be impounded until then. We consider your unannounced arrival in-system and your subsequent behaviour a breach of contract and are responding as such. Do not attempt to try to escape - the tractor beams will rip your vessels apart, and at any rate, the Interdiction field being produced by my ship will prevent any attempt at FTL travel.

"In addition, you will lay down your arms and surrender peacefully. I assure you that we will not hesitate to use lethal force in subduing any who resist. Any attempt to use teleportation devices again - we noticed, yes - will be met with the instant destruction of all of your ships."

=/\=There's that arrogance again. Any attempts to board our ships will be considered an agressive act and treated as such. You think we'll just let you stroll all over us and take what you want of our tech and knowledge? You must be dreaming if you think we wouldn't see threw to the core of what you want our ships for.

May I remind you that it was your ships that opened fire and that we never even brought our weapons on-line at all this entire time.

If you hadn't been so trigger happy, you might have found yourselves with a new friend amoung these stars, something every nation needs in as large an aboundance as it can get these troublsome times with many nations embroiled in this GFFA-ESUS War, or have you not heard of that massive inter-alliance conflict?

We had no desire or intention to start a fight with anyone here today. Our prior communications with Skgorria made no mention of your presence here. Hence, we will continue to deal with them.

Now, we would like to speak to Captain Petersen of the Skgorrian Air Force (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12217538&postcount=305). Our prior communiques before our our arrival was with him. He knew of our ships being en route to this system. He was made aware of our security concerns. If their was any break down in communications, it was on your end, not ours.=/\=

Colonel West scowled at the egocentricity these Atopians were displaying. To him, it seemed almost as if they felt the universe revolved around them or something.

"Who do those f'ing assholes think they are," growled the Captain, "they shoot at us and say we are the ones at fault. Bull shit!"

"Calm down, Captain," suggested West, who, judging by his expression, was equally pissed off, "I don't know who these Atopians are or why they are here. Once we get a channel open with the Skgorrians again, we'll try to get to the bottom of this senseless and unfounded attack upon us. Lets try to not start a war here."

West then had the comm officer try to get in touch with any Skgorrian comm station in the area so they could let Petersen know of their arrival and that they were under attack and being threatned by the Atopians.

OOC: Hmm, yep, it seems that you two had a little communications break-down. Skgorria knew I was coming (the linked post is proof of that), so I'm going to have fun seeing how you IC'ly sort that out.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 17:10

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"Bring them in."
"Aye-aye sir."

Noiselessly, the huge tractor beams began pulling the vessels into one of the cavernous launch bays of the Victory.

"I want a welcoming party down there. Four divisions of Marines should do it, the standard spread - Captains, Brigadiers, the odd General - and don't damage the vessels too much.

"Guns, target their engines. I want their exhaust ports blown to slag. Low-yield weaponry for the moment."

"Aye sir. Firing now, sir."

From the lighter turbolaser batteries studded all across the ship, bright lances of energy burned into the immobilised vessels' drive systems.

"Comms, get the Gates on-screen, quadruple encryption. Jam all the comms from those enemy ships."

"Aye sir, Gates on-screen in ten. Comms jammed already sir."

Settling back into his command throne, the Captain-General smiled. At last, he thought, brave fools to demonstrate our might to.

Skgorria

21-01-2007, 18:17

Bridge of 'Gates of Berlin'

"Gates here, what's up Victory?" asked the Comms Officer, offering a high five across the viewscreen.

Trinity Blood

21-01-2007, 18:24

OOC: Uhm, slight problem with destroying the engines, Atop. Take out the nacelles and you'll cause a core breach. Still, you asked for it.

IC: Once again, the Atopians had made a mistake. By 'slagging' the nacelles of Raptor 22 they had set off a chain reaction which caused the M/AM core to build towards overload. It happened so fast only half of her crew made it out alive in escape pods before she blew in another shockwave. This, thanks to the Atopian's genius in bringing them into their hangers, would cause serious damage at such close range. The shockwave alone caused enough damage to Raptor 16 that the neck was sheared and the head section of the ship began to drift away.

"ARE THOSE IDIOTS INSANE!" shouted the Captain, "Those bungaling baffoons are going to get us all killed!"

"If its a fight they want," growled West, "then, by God, we'll give them one.

"Lieutenant," he ordered the Tactical Officer, "inform the crew to prepare to repel boarders. Also, I want you to hard wire out torpedoes so we can remote detonate them if we need to as a last resort. If they want to take us out, we'll take out as many of these morons as we can with us."

"Aye, sir," repied the Tactical Officer with a nod before departing the bridge.

At the same time, a cloud of microprobes emerged from the NX-07's hangers and darted towards the planet's surface. They were all screaming their heads off on all comm channels they could get trying to inform the Skgorrian's of the Atopians uprovoked attack. The NX-07 may not be one of the explorer varients of the class, but she carried enough microprobes that the Atopians wouldn't be able to destroy them all before some were able to get their message to the Skgorrians.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 18:36

"Victory to Gates," smiled the Comms officer, high-fiving back, "the Captain-General's in a high dudgeon and has put a - ah, woops, looks like his last order went a bit wrong. Hold, please."

The core breach buffeted the immense shields of the Victory to no effect - although it did send two smaller cruisers slamming into one another and obliterated two squadrons of fighters that had been running close escort. A Star Destroyer's systems went offline and three technicians on board a shuttle had brain aneurysms and died.

"Number One," said the Captain-General, mildly (causing his crew to flinch), "kindly inform the gunners that they should cease fire - it appears that the enemy vessels are somewhat... delicate."
"Aye sir. Gates of Berlin is on screen seven, sir."
"I'll get to them in a minute. Open comms to the remaining vessels down there will you?"
"Sir."

"This is the Captain-General of the Vorkutlag system. As you may have noticed, we don't like being dicked about. Now. Either you surrender, or my troops come in and drag you out of your hidey holes. The easy way results in no more deaths. The hard way will result in you all dying in the hard vacuum of space. Your choice. Out."

Then, turning to his Comms officer again, he opened Screen Seven.

"Berlin, good to speak to you. Could you put Captain Petersen on screen please?"

Trinity Blood

21-01-2007, 19:39

=/\=We will gladly die in the name of the Empress to prevent pirate scum like you from taking our ships, people, and technology! We fight, we die, but we will die with honor. Which is more than I can say of those of you we'll take with us to the afterlife as we make our way to the Halls of Valhalla. We will have earned our way into Sto-vo-kor with honorable deaths. Your people, on the other hand, will descend into the depths Gre'thor, the section of Hell reserved for the dishonorable.

We came here peacefully and you attacked us, not the other way around, you trigger happy murderer! We never activated, charged, or deployed any of our offensive systems. We only activated our defenses upon arrival as we were not told to expect anyone else here besides ourselves and the Skgorrians.

Word of our mission here reached the Skgorrians long before our arrival. Don't believe us, ask them.=/\=

The comm modified microprobes, meanwhile, continued their descent towards the planetoid screaming their transmitter's heads off for the Skgorrians. At the same time, the Tactical Officer was in the process of rigging the NX-07's torpedoes to be able to mass detonate them on commnd from the bridge without launching, the Chief Engineer was working on a way to artifically cause a warp core breach at will, and the First Officer was setting up to make ready to hard whipe everything from the computers so the Atopians would get nothing from them. Also, the entire crew were arming up with EM-33 Plasma Pistols, Class-3 Pulse Rifles, Gauss Pistols, Winchester Pulse Rifles, Thompson M1928 Submachineguns, and Phase Pistols. The MACOs were also gearing up with their own varients of the Class-3 Pulse Rifle along with a couple Sniper Rifle varients of it.

Skgorria

21-01-2007, 20:51

Bridge of 'Gates of Berlin'

"Yup, here he is!" grinned the Comms Officer before being replaced by a well-groomed man in a Skgorrian Air Force Captain's uniform. He tugged at the brim of his cap and scratched his arm.
"Petersen here," he stated, "looks like you've opened fire on some of our guests. Please stop doing that, or this could get nasty. We have our reputation to think of."

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 21:13

SIC:

"If they will make their ships out of tinfoil and explosives, Petersen, who am I to blame? At any rate, it's gone far too far for talk now. I'm just about to withdraw the pickets so that my gunners have a clear shot, then I'm sending in the 12th Division. Ion cannons applied first of course. Any survivors will be sent, of course, straight to you for interrogation. Victory out."

IC:

As the picket vessels of the attendant fleet withdrew - in case the crazies on board their flimsy vessels decided to self-destruct - the ion cannon batteries blazed remorselessly. A single shot was designed to nullify shields, down electronics and disrupt the nervous system (unconsciousness would follow) of the crews of Star Destroyers; but the gunners of the Victory were taking no chances. Fully 400 shots slammed home as the first Daggerships followed close behind.

Each Daggership was a long blade-shaped vessel designed to carry 40 Captain-class power armoured Marines and 4 Brigadier-class tank-replacement armour suits. The boarding ships would - so the theory ran - punch through the vessel's outer skins, opening it to the vacuum. Then, as the Daggership halted, the doors would open and out would pour the Marines - armoured and armed.

50 were launched at each ship - two for the bridge, and the rest dotted around the place.

At the same time, Turbolaser batteries began delicately severing the NX-07's large saucer from its engines...

Trinity Blood

21-01-2007, 21:35

West sighed at the idiocy of the Atopians. Upon detection of the incoming weapon's fire, everyone that could fled in the NX-07's escape pods, four fighter pods, and two shuttle pods. West looked out one of the windows of the shuttle pod he was aboard as the Atopians flaunted their stupidity once more as the Captain piloted the small craft to a point as far away as possible in an attempt to hopefully reach a point outside the blast radius. With the escape pods, shuttle pods, and fighter pods in formation, West watched as the Atopians tried to cut the NX-07 in half, causing a feedback surge along the EPS counduits from the warp nacelles directly back to the many times more powerful warp core than the model that had been aboard the Raptors. The heavily damaged Raptor 16 was consumed in the blast as the feedback surge started an uncontrolled M/AM reaction practically inside the Atopian vessel's hanger bay.

"She was a good ship," sighed West as he saluted those who had lost their lives aboard the Raptors and the souls of the ships destroyed in an unprovoked attack by the Atopian bigots.

The other survivors also solomly gave salutes as the shockwave raced towards them. The rear most escape pods were consumed by the wave while the ones further foward were knocked out of control into various crash landing courses to the planetoid's surface. Some would hit the atmosphere at angles that would cause them to burn up, but others would survive to impact the surface.

The shuttle pods and fighter pods escaped the worst of the blast and came out with minimal scorch marks. Figuring the Atopian murderers wouldn't give up that easily, the fighter pods docked with each other, thus increasing their power, offenses, defenses, and all other systems four fold as each enhanced the other. Rotating so that the now combined fighter pods were flying backwards, the merged craft was moved into position to cover the rear of the shuttle pods as they head full speed towards a ship identified as belonging to the nation of Skgorria, the Gates Of Berlin. The surviving space worthy craft all began to emit omni-directional SOS signals in old Morse Code.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 21:39

Skgorria

21-01-2007, 21:41

OOC: The 'Gates of Berlin' is a Golan-II battle station. Think BIG space station with shields and guns :)

IC:

"Damnit!" cursed Petersen as he watched the vessel explode, then he swung into action.
"Get the shields up, and send fighter patrols. Those pods are now under Skgorrian protection."
"At once Captain!" and with that, the crew began their tasks. The following transmission was sent out on all bands:
The craft heading towards the 'Gates of Berlin' are now under Skgorrian protection
To match their words, a full wing of TIE Defenders blossomed out towards the shuttle pods and fighter pods with the intent of covering them.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 21:44

"Skgorrian," growled the Captain-General over the link, "may I remind you who holds the whip-hand in the Pact? But, I like you. You can have any vessel that reaches your docking bay - anything else is fair game and under Atopian jurisdiction!"

Kahanistan

21-01-2007, 21:45

Unaware of the impending arrival of the Defence Minister, the troops, now with only 12 days remaining on the planetoid, began a more aggressive offensive against the dangerous creatures of the training ground.

Unit commanders realised that in a combat environment, they couldn't just indiscriminately destroy in an area where there were civilians, and not wanting to adopt that mindset by mindlessly destroying suspicious vegetation, adopted new rules of engagement that only allowed them to shoot plants that moved or attacked them, and use bayonets to cut through stubborn vegetation. This had the added effect of saving ammunition for real threats like the Kh'rask and Hellions, should they strike.

The plan to lure OMF beasts into the pits as an added threat continued, however; they were not going to let some six-meter tall monsters run roughshod over them. Accordingly, some soldiers were trying to drag a D'rasii they'd shot with a rocket launcher into their camp's defensive pit, while holding the OMF beasts at bay with their tracer rounds and bayonets. The dead crab-thing was intended as bait to lure the monsters into the pit, where they would be trapped and fed on any Hellion or D'rasii that ventured into the pit.

Atopiana

21-01-2007, 21:47

Transport Shuttle 283 Delta, Kahanistan Airspace:

"This is Atopian Shuttle 283 Delta to Kahanistan Air Traffic Control. Request permission to land at your main airport?"

Trinity Blood

21-01-2007, 22:00

Sighing at the cowardice of the Bolsheviks, the Captain General doffed his cap.

"Commend their names to the wall of Heroes, Number One. Bring us about. Send the Imperious and the Fasces after that bastard vessel and ready the Superlaser for firing."

The two Star Destroyers detached themselves from their escort formation and moved swiftly towards the fleeing pods, launching TIE Defenders as they did so...

OOC: An f'ing super laser, you've got to be off your rocker there, Atop. Way too much over-kill there. TBH, I would be surprised if you could hit a target that small with a clearly anti-capital ship or anti-planet weapon.

OOC: The 'Gates of Berlin' is a Golan-II battle station. Think BIG space station with shields and guns :)

OOC: Sorry. Want me to go back and edit in the correction?

IC:

"Damnit!" cursed Petersen as he watched the vessel explode, then he swung into action.
"Get the shields up, and send fighter patrols. Those pods are now under Skgorrian protection."
"At once Captain!" and with that, the crew began their tasks. The following transmission was sent out on all bands:
The craft heading towards the 'Gates of Berlin' are now under Skgorrian protection
To match their words, a full wing of TIE Defenders blossomed out towards the shuttle pods and fighter pods with the intent of covering them.

After a few tense seconds prior to picking up the transponder signals of the incoming fighters identifying them as Skgorrian through the Atopian jamming, the tiny ships held their fire. While they still kept a Tactical Alert level due to the threat the Atopian's posed, they made no attempt to hinder the Skgorrian craft.

Barely reading the Skgorrian broadcast through the interference of the Atopian jamming, West sent a message back directly to the Gates Of Berlin as well as to a nearby Skgorrian fighter to see if the pilot would have a better chance at relaying it to the station through the jamming.

=/\=Thank-you for your cover. We are still at a loss as to why those ships fired upon ours and attempted what was, by definition, an act of piracy. Luckily, the destruction was complete enough that they won't be able to obtain any knowledge about us from any remains, if they find any at all.

Oh, and by the way, this is Colonel West. Forgive me for not introducing ourselves to you earlier, but we were a bit distracted by our 'friends' over there with the itchy trigger fingers.

And, please, have a medical team standing by for our arrival with fresh blood. I've got some wounded who are going to need it rather soon after we touch down.=/\=

Meanwhile, the escape pods that had survived atmospheric entry began slamming into the ground throwing up immense dust clouds and digging long furrows. By pure chance, one impacted only a few miles from the Kahanistan encampment.

Kahanistan

21-01-2007, 22:16

"Granted."

---

The Defence Minister was even angrier now that she had been led to think the transport was landing on the roof and now it was at the airport. She descended the elevator to the footbridge leading to the parking garage where her vehicle was parked, and then drove at over 120 kilometers per hour to the airport, where the Atopian shuttle was.

The general was armed only with a sidearm, hardly useful against the more dangerous creatures on the planetoid, but knowing a little about the creatures from reading Fulton's report, armed herself with an M-16 that was in her back seat, with an M-203 40mm underslung grenade launcher and a bayonet. The blade would offer some protection against the plant life, but little against the Kh'rask.

She exited her vehicle and walked to what she thought was the Atopian ship...

Atopiana

22-01-2007, 01:26

OOC: A superlaser is somewhat overkill*, but the Captain-General is bored - he's never had a chance to fire it, poor man! ;)

Kahanistanian Airport:

"Hello!" called the pilot as he leapt from the Shuttle's side door, "You must be, ahm, General, what does it say here, excuse me, the communication flimsy's a bit muddled, um... ah yes, General, um, Poopoo... pants... no, that can't be right, sorry, sorry, let's see. Um. No, General Poopoopants. You are General Poopoopants? Bloody hope so or else I've taken Bertha all the way to the wrong planet, gosh, that would be silly, wouldn't it? Oh, I am sorry," he laughed, flashing white teeth as he smiled, his eyes twinkling, "I'm your Captain for the journey, Captain Stammers, Alexi Stammers, at your service. Must say, I was most surprised to see that my boss wanted me to land on the roof, rather dangerous, that. Anyway, you're here now, no use fussing, General, please come with me."

Training Ground:

Suddenly, mid-conversation, Ma'am Frank (a common name in Atopiana) stopped. Then, wordlessly, her suit went chameleon, and vanished, moving towards the trails of smoke that marked the crash sites of the drop pods...

Space:

As the two Star Destroyers and their TIE Defenders closed on the fleeing craft, they opened up with a desultory fire, not willing to risk hitting the Skgorrian vessels.

OOC: * Rule 7: There is no 'overkill', only 'fire' and 'reload'.

Kahanistan

22-01-2007, 01:45

The Defence Minister was growing progressively angrier. "I am General Nora Kasagawa, the Minister of Defence," she said coldly. "I'm here to show your people that our generals aren't afraid to go to the front." It was basically her way of saying that she'd let Yuklig get to her, and didn't want to admit it. She boarded the Atopian ship, avoiding eye contact with the crew as she sat down in the first seat she saw that wasn't occupied.

Trinity Blood

22-01-2007, 02:06

OOC: A superlaser is somewhat overkill*, but the Captain-General is bored - he's never had a chance to fire it, poor man! ;)

OOC: * Rule 7: There is no 'overkill', only 'fire' and 'reload'.

OOC: Still, its very inefficient. A waste of resources and time.

Training Ground:

Suddenly, mid-conversation, Ma'am Frank (a common name in Atopiana) stopped. Then, wordlessly, her suit went chameleon, and vanished, moving towards the trails of smoke that marked the crash sites of the drop pods...

The force of the impact of the one closest to her position had crumpled the escape pod in on itself. The first site anyone would see, provided they were able to force the jammed hatch open, would be the decapitated head of a young man barely out of the Academy. It would be obvious from the way his head was bloated and his eyes bulged that their had been a hull breach on the way down.

Space:

As the two Star Destroyers and their TIE Defenders closed on the fleeing craft, they opened up with a desultory fire, not willing to risk hitting the Skgorrian vessels.

The Trinity Blood craft bolted in different directions and began to bank in on new vectors towards the Gates Of Berlin. Still, they didn't return fire as they wouldn't stoop to the level of cold-blooded murderers like the Atopians.

Atopiana

22-01-2007, 05:55

Shuttle 283 Delta:

"So you're not called Poopoopants?" Captain Stammers was confused. Intel never normally got things wrong, and he'd not really queried what he'd thought was a very silly name as foreigners often spoke different languages. "Oh. Oh well, never mind, Intel clearly made a mistake, ha ha..."

Hm. Clearly this passenger brought new meaning to the words 'taciturn' and 'solitary'.

"Well," he tried again, as he strapped himself into his seat, "are you off to Vorkutlag-1 then? Can't say I envy you, I much prefer flying Bertha here all over the place, much safer. Gosh, I mean, I've never even been to the surface - checks green all electrics - of Vorkutlag, but I hear tell it's really pretty horrific. Checks green all hydraulics. Those loony Skgorrians love the place, give it all this chatter about 'Strength of will' and 'Victory to the pure' but between you, me, and the crew, they're all nuts. Sure, we're probably not much better, what with our slogans -" here, the crew broke in, all at once, as though it was a much-rehearsed speech; "such as 'Immediate Action' or 'Victory Through Action', but," continued Stammers, on his own now, as the other crewmen busied themselves with the checks, "at least we don't gas people by the cityload just because we don't like the shape of their nose...

"Oh, General, have you ever been in a spaceship before?"

Crash Site:

With the increased gain pick-up of her suit's vision, Frank spotted the corpses half a mile away. She throttled back and moved slower, her suit's passive sensors straining to locate the escaped crew. Undetectable to the naked eye - and many sensors - her chamelonic armour moved in, its built-in maser humming, subsonically.

Space:

Abruptly, with no apparent explanation, the pursuers broke off. TIE Defenders shot back into their hangars, and the Star Destroyers turned away to resume their patrol. Back at the clash zone, teams of specialists were sifting through the atoms and larger chunks of wreckage in an attempt to ascertain as much as possible about the make-up of the enemy vessels.

Kahanistan

22-01-2007, 08:53

Since the Captain sounded sincere to her, General Kasagawa decided to cut the cold shoulder act.

"No, I've never been in space, most of us haven't here, except for astronauts and the people who maintain our satellites," she replied.

Trinity Blood

22-01-2007, 09:37

Crash Site:

With the increased gain pick-up of her suit's vision, Frank spotted the corpses half a mile away. She throttled back and moved slower, her suit's passive sensors straining to locate the escaped crew. Undetectable to the naked eye - and many sensors - her chamelonic armour moved in, its built-in maser humming, subsonically.

OOC: Unless she can see through the bulkheads, she won't be able to see any organic remains. I referenced that to show what would be seen if the hatch (mangled in the crash) was able to be forced open.

IC: The only survivor of the crash landing in this particular pod probably wouldn't survive without rapid medical attention. The Methuselah was in the dappled gray camo uniform of a MACO and had the pips showing she was a Major. Intense plasma burns coated the left side of her face and continued down her left arm, scorching through the uniform. With her left arm dangling useless, obviously dislocated as well, she managed to worm her way free from beneath the corpse of a Sargent who had died when a rather large piece of jagged shrapnel had impedded itself vertically between his eyes reaching from mid-way up his nose to his hair-line.

Space:

Abruptly, with no apparent explanation, the pursuers broke off. TIE Defenders shot back into their hangars, and the Star Destroyers turned away to resume their patrol. Back at the clash zone, teams of specialists were sifting through the atoms and larger chunks of wreckage in an attempt to ascertain as much as possible about the make-up of the enemy vessels.

Noting the cessation of pursuit, the Trinity Blood craft joined back up in a new formation headed for the Gates Of Berlin. As for the Atopian's attempt at pirating the remains, well they wouldn't find much more than slag and free atoms as a M/AM core breach of that size didn't leave much of anything. The largest chunk of the NX-07 that had survived was roughly twice the size of an average adult male human fist and all it would show was that the blast had rendered the debris into worthless chunks of material that would crumble into dust at the slightest touch.

Kahanistan

22-01-2007, 12:53

Planet

A Kahanistanian sentry noticed what looked like a crash. A combat engineering bridge was laid across the defensive pit and an armed patrol dispatched before the wildlife could get ahold of any survivors.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Ministry of Defence

Court Chambers

General Khalid al-Zamrati, the presiding judge, opened the trial.

"Defendant, state your full name, rank, serial number, and any testimony you may wish to give." In Kahanistan, one could not be compelled to incriminate oneself, but judges usually asked for whatever information the defendant had in order to better make a ruling.

The defendant rose, a small figure in such a large chamber, surrounded by jurors, defence counsel, prosecutors, court guards, et cetera, and spoke.

"My name is Mara Kaitlin Fulton. I'm a Major in the Kahanistan Republic Guard, ID RG-one, four, zero, eight, one, nine, seven, eight, D. I was accidentally separated from my troops for the majority of the training period through no fault of my own."

General al-Zamrati nodded. "Major Fulton, you are charged with one count of dereliction of duty and one count of incompetence in command leading to disastrous loss of life. The maximum penalty for the former count is one year imprisonment, the maximum penalty for the latter is demotion to the lowest officer rank and two years imprisonment. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty," said Major Fulton calmly. She sat down in her chair.

General Mohammed al-Barzani, the chief prosecutor, rose. "We intend to establish that Major Fulton is an incompetent commander whose continued service in the military is a threat to national security. We seek to establish a history of incompetence dating back to the Najaster riots (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/2006_Kahanistan_riots) last year. We will show that her total lack of ability to make difficult command decisions under fire has existed for some time and not been rectified, and this case is merely the latest example in a string of military blunders to come from this officer."

Brigadier General Hassan Mahmoud Zakhmur, the military counsel appointed for defence, spoke up. "First off, any incompetence the Republic may establish is completely irrelevant to the case at hand; one's command skills do improve over time in command, which is why people are promoted to higher ranks as they serve. Secondly, the Major was acting in accordance with established rules of engagement during the riots which forbid the use of lethal force against civilians. Thirdly, she is the one who requested support against the rioters who grossly outnumbered the Presidential Security Detachment by hundreds to one. Finally, the Republic has failed to establish any other examples of events it can construe as evidence of incompetence. I move to summarily dismiss this case for lack of evidence."

"Motion denied," said al-Zamrati. "I'll give the prosecution some time to establish a case before making a ruling."

"Thank you very much," said al-Barzani. "Exhibit A." He showed a copy of the photograph of Mara laying on the rock. "Here, she is focusing more on her tan than on her command. She is clearly not officer material, let alone someone who should be commanding the forces responsible for the security of the President. She is definitely not focused on her command. And the Republic would like to call a witness. The Republic calls Corporal Alexei Mikolev to the stand."

A tall, lanky young man with hippie-looking dark brown hair and goofy, round glasses stepped up to the stand. General al-Barzani asked him, "Witness, state your full name, rank, and serial number."

"My name is Alexei Mikhailovich Mikolev. Corporal, RG-one, seven, zero, nine, one, nine, eight, three, A."

"Corporal Mikolev, can you identify this photograph?"

"Yep. Took it during training."

"Can you identify the woman in the photograph?"

"Certainly. That's Major Fulton. She's my commanding officer."

"Can you tell us the circumstances under which you took this photograph, Corporal Mikolev?"

"We were walking to base camp, carrying a couple of wounded. We were tired after we'd battled the rock warriors and we'd been out walking for three hours, our legs were tired, a couple of us had fallen down a few times, the Major had just been breathing into one of the wounded for an hour, we were carrying a ton of gear on us, and we all decided to rest. I saw the Major lying on this rock thing and decided to take a picture of her."

Fulton looked at Mikolev crossly. She had suspected him of taking the photograph of her, but had no real proof. I'll have him scrubbing toilets for this. She knew he had no intention of getting her into trouble, and was simply taking advantage of the chance to photograph an attractive woman laying out, but she still wasn't happy.

Fulton's civilian attorney, Dr. Julius Tiberius Camellus, drunk as a skunk, spoke up. "Let me get this straight, Mr. Mikolev," said the sot. "What was going through your head when you decided to take a picture of this lovely lady here?" he slurred.

"Well..." he thought for a second, not wanting to further irritate the Major. "I... just wanted to take a photograph of her. Probably approach her with it, not admit that I'd taken it, and maybe sell the picture to Army Boy magazine for a few thousand shekels, split the proceeds with her 20-80 or 10-90." Army Boy magazine was a publication of Samizdat Corporation (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Samizdat_Corporation), a Kahanistanian-based media outlet specialising in controversial literature. The magazine featured interviews with military officers of both sexes, detailing reasons for joining, personal likes and dislikes, political views and the like. It also had a section for photographs of the more attractive female officers, but no nudity. For the gays and women, there was also a smaller section with photographs of men. The magazine was exported throughout the world and included some foreign officers, but the overwhelming majority of people interviewed or photographed were Kahanistanians.

"So," said Zakhmur. "You are a dishonest piece of shit. You took photographs of this woman without her knowledge or consent. You weren't going to admit that you took them. You were going to profit from them. You were going to support that filthy rag. You are a coward. You are scum. You are filth. You are exactly what is wrong with men these days, focusing too much on the female body, and you make it next to impossible for decent men to get a date these days. You are an insult to the male gender. You are a pathetic, hormone-driven little worm, and because of you, a perfectly innocent woman is being dragged through the mud." Zakhmur smirked sadistically as Mikolev's face fell. He was castrating the Corporal better than Fulton could have hoped to do.

Now that he had beaten the prosecution's only witness into the ground, he called in a character witness for the defendant, repeating the usual call for the name, rank, and serial number.

A tall, voluptuous blonde woman stepped up to the podium. When asked for her information, she replied, "Drusilla Lavinia Aetia. I'm 35 years old, I'm a civilian, I work as a locksmith these days."

"A civilian... how did you come to know the defendant, Ms. Aetia?"

"We were in the Military Academy together for two years."

"You're a civilian. How did you know the defendant there?"

"I attended for two years, from 1995 to 1997."

She didn't finish. "How did you meet?"

"We were in Basic Communication, and met a lot in the training field."

"OK, what was your impression of her?"

"Very patriotic, loyal, a bit cynical about the current system, but she was one of the most loyal people I've ever met. She'll stick by you when you're in the shit. She'd never abandon someone in need. Hell, she stuck by me when I got in trouble at the Academy over discipline problems."

Zakhmur turned to the jury. "There you have it! Someone who's loyal, patriotic, a highly determined, valuable commander, being dragged through the muck because someone needs a scapegoat for the deaths that took place under her command and some dishonest little punk took pictures of her. Now, I must apologise for my civilian co-counsel here," he nodded at Camellus, who had passed out drunk, "but this lady here deserves a medal, not to be roasted in somebody's witch hunt."

"The jury will take a recess to deliberate," said al-Zamrati. "Witnesses, courtroom personnel, counsels, and the defendant, are free to move about until the jury is finished deliberating."

Skgorria

22-01-2007, 13:54

OOC: Don't sweat about editing, just don't expect the Gates to start flying away :P

Surface

Yuklig saw the Kahanistanis assembling for a sortie. Must be going after the pods he mused, I'd better go and keep an eye on them. He jogged over to the patrol and sketched an informal salute,
"If you're heading off to the pods I shall come with you," he announced, "if there are any survivors I can call in a medevac."

Space

As the Atopian craft pulled away, several cheers resounded amongst the Skgorrian station and fighter crews. They had got one up on their uppity allies at long last.
"Bring them in boys," grinned Petersen. "Clear the main bay for them, status Alpha. Mobilise a couple of crews to help out."

"Attention Colonel West" broadcasted one of the TIEs, flying close to the pods in an effort to improve reception. "The Atopians have broken off pursuit for now, I'm going to assume the lead in the formation. Please follow me in and park in the docking bay." A TIE dropped into the lead of the pods and waggled its wings, indicating that the pods should follow the fighter. Large red lights lit up the outside of the bay, and they would have no problem passing through the magcon field that seperated the bay's atmosphere from the hard vacuum of space. The bay had been cleared of everything except a few cargo pallets so the pods would have plenty of space to land. The bay also doubled as the fighter hangar, and three squadrons of TIEs flew into the racks suspended on the ceiling with the aid of precision replusorlifts. Not sure as to what would be needed, a large body of crewmembers had been assembled. Amongst their ranks were the white-armoured Kriegsmarine, regular Air Force troopers, doctors, engineers and even a few deckhands in case raw muscle was needed.

Trinity Blood

22-01-2007, 16:02

OOC: Don't sweat about editing, just don't expect the Gates to start flying away :P

OOC: Alright. Oh, and lol.

Surface

Yuklig saw the Kahanistanis assembling for a sortie. Must be going after the pods he mused, I'd better go and keep an eye on them. He jogged over to the patrol and sketched an informal salute,
"If you're heading off to the pods I shall come with you," he announced, "if there are any survivors I can call in a medevac."

@All 3 of you: Lol, I expect at least one of you is going to RP arriving at the pod by the Kahanistani encampment in your next post, correct?

Space

As the Atopian craft pulled away, several cheers resounded amongst the Skgorrian station and fighter crews. They had got one up on their uppity allies at long last.
"Bring them in boys," grinned Petersen. "Clear the main bay for them, status Alpha. Mobilise a couple of crews to help out."

"Attention Colonel West" broadcasted one of the TIEs, flying close to the pods in an effort to improve reception. "The Atopians have broken off pursuit for now, I'm going to assume the lead in the formation. Please follow me in and park in the docking bay." A TIE dropped into the lead of the pods and waggled its wings, indicating that the pods should follow the fighter. Large red lights lit up the outside of the bay, and they would have no problem passing through the magcon field that seperated the bay's atmosphere from the hard vacuum of space. The bay had been cleared of everything except a few cargo pallets so the pods would have plenty of space to land. The bay also doubled as the fighter hangar, and three squadrons of TIEs flew into the racks suspended on the ceiling with the aid of precision replusorlifts. Not sure as to what would be needed, a large body of crewmembers had been assembled. Amongst their ranks were the white-armoured Kriegsmarine, regular Air Force troopers, doctors, engineers and even a few deckhands in case raw muscle was needed.

=/\=Acknowledged Gates Of Berlin. Be aware the port thruster of our second shuttle pod was damaged in the shockwave and could fail at any time. Due to the damage, there is a chance of a plasma leak from that engine. Also, thanks once again for the assist.=/\=

It could clearly be seen that the shuttle pod in question's port engine was dimmer than her starboard engine. It flickered a couple of times along the way, but the shuttle pod touched down safely without gaining a plasma leak and the engine in question was powered down after landing to ensure it wouldn't. The Colonel's shuttle pod set down next to it. The fighter pods unhooked from each other and landed a few meters away from the shuttle pods.

After trying the side hatch and discovering the internal controls had shorted out, the dorsal hatch of West's shuttle pod was opened.

Using nothing but his own muscles to pull himself out, the Captain called, "Could someone get a ladder up here? The side door is jammed and I need to see if I can access the external control panel for it and open it."

He clambered down onto the port wing, still in flight configuration like the other wings on both shuttle pods, and darted over to the hatch's external controls and began inputing commands.

"Bugger," he groaned, "looks like the control interface needs to be rebooted," he continued loud enough for West, who had stuck his head out of the dorsal hatch while helping an Ensign with a broken arm out of the shuttle pod.

"Got it," West replied ducking back inside.

A few seconds later, a slight hiss could be heard as the lock keeping the hatch air-tight was disengaged by the reboot. With the Captain working from the outside and West working from the inside, both managed to man-handle the top portion of the hatch open. The lower portion was still jammed and they didn't have time to work on it.

"Alright," said West ducking back in to help the injured Methuselah in need of the blood that had been requested to the hatch.

The Lieutenant in question had third degree burns all down the entire right side of his body and severe plasma burns all across the rest of him.

"A EPS conduit exploded right on top of him," said West as way of explanation as he and the Captain worked to get him out of the shuttle pod, "now, where is that blood I requested. He needs it stat!"

Skgorria

23-01-2007, 00:41

Kahanistan

23-01-2007, 01:08

Surface

Yuklig saw the Kahanistanis assembling for a sortie. Must be going after the pods he mused, I'd better go and keep an eye on them. He jogged over to the patrol and sketched an informal salute,
"If you're heading off to the pods I shall come with you," he announced, "if there are any survivors I can call in a medevac."

"Sure, come along, they might be hurt worse than we can help." The squad leader was willing to allow the Storm-Major to come simply because he might be essential to these people's survival; the Kahanistanians were still slow to trust him.

Trinity Blood

23-01-2007, 02:59

"You heard the man, fetch a ladder!" bellowed a tall grey-uniformed officer. Quickly crewmen turned and ran to a supply locker to fetch a ladder whilst the rest of the Skgorrians sprung into action. Several medics laid out their stretchers whilst miscellaneous Skgorrians helped carry the wounded onto them, including the person with the broken arm and the individual suffering from severe burns. The medics shoved a couple of packets labelled 'EF' onto the burned Lieutenant's body.
"Emergency fluids," explained the medic briefly without taking his eyes off the patient, "it'll keep him alive until we reach Medbay. Come on, let's go!" With that, two of the medical team carried the burned individual out of the hangar.

"He's Methuselah," said West, "all he needs is fresh blood to fuel the regeneration process. Blood type doesn't matter as long as he gets enough of it in time."

He reached down and pulled back the man's upper lip on the unburned side to show the most visible physical difference between Terrans (OOC: What humans are called in my nation (I don't remember if I mentioned that in a previous post)) and Methuselah, the distended fang-like canines.

Meanwhile, a ladder had been found and propped up against the shuttle pod, allowing crew to descend from the top hatch. Two Kriegsmarine approached the Captain, carrying a large box between the both of them.
"If time's an issue for you or casualties, we can speed this up by blowing a hole in the side of this baby," one of them offered.

For all intents and purposes, the fighter pods, which had sustained the least damage, and the shuttle pods had been picked with survivors tighter than any can of sardines. However, the fighter pods were many times easier to exit as the entire front simply swung upwards to open. Though, in both shuttle pods, those that could, stood on the shoulders of their comrades to climbe out of the dorsal hatch while the ones with injuries preventing that were taken out through the side hatches.

"With apologies," replied the Captain, "but I would rather we keep them intact for transfer to the ship that comes to pick us up. It would be inefficient to remove them from operational service for the duration it would take for the repairs when things are going so smoothly.

"Though, feel free to join the chain gang in helping my crew out."

Atopiana

23-01-2007, 22:30

Shuttle 283 Delta:

"Well then General, you're in for a treat. Bertha here is fully gravity capable - that is, there'll be no weight changes regardless of our acceleration - and it really is a beautiful sight. In fact, if you want to come onto the flight deck, you can see your planet for a bit."

Bridge, ASV Victory:

"Well," grinned the Captain-General, "that went well."
"Yes sir," laughed Number One, "a pity about the losses, but it couldn't be helped."
"No. Have the factory ships fabricate more Daggerships and TIEs to replace those we lost, and rotate members of Third Watch to replace those lost from Second. Also draw recruits from the current Reserve Class to replace the Third Watch troops."
"Sir."

Crash Site:

OOC: Yes, she can - IR and other visual aids are built into the Captain-class armoured suit ;)

As she approached the pod, she switched her maser rifle to full-power, and attached a breaching charge to the mangled hatch. Gliding back, she watched the charge go off. Then, switching her maser to full-power and wide-beam, she sprayed the opening; following this burst of fire with a grenade. After it went off, she glided into the pod's interior, her maser at the ready...

Kahanistan

23-01-2007, 22:39

The general nodded and came to the flight deck, expecting a view of Earth similar to those she'd seen in photographs taken from the moon.

Atopiana

23-01-2007, 23:15

Shuttle 283 Delta:

"There you go, General, your planet - above to the left. In about five minutes we'll be able to jump, you can stay here to watch if you like? Nothing too exciting, it all goes a bit shimmery and then the stars change."

Skgorria

23-01-2007, 23:28

The medic's eyes widened when he saw the fangs, but said nothing else as he and his partner rushed the injured Methuselah out of the bay to the medical facilities. Other casualties would follow them as soon as medics had them on a stretcher, meaning there would be a constant stream of medics leaving the bay with injured crew. A stern-faced pair of Air Force trooper stood guard at the bay's exit, and would prevent anyone from following the medics out of the bay.

The Kriegsmarine sighed,
"Oh bollocks, I was looking forward to making something go 'boom'. Still, we'll help out. Just tell us," he motioned for a large number of crewmen and women to come forward, "where we need to go and we'll help."

On the planet, Yuklig heard the distinctive sounds of weapon fire.
"Be careful," he added uselessly.

Atopiana

23-01-2007, 23:39

Crash Site:

From within the pod, Frank's sensors picked up the approaching Kahanistanis. Broadcasting to Yuklig only, she said, "Yuklig - get the Kahanistanis away. This is Atopian business, not theirs or yours. By order of K Division."

Skgorria

23-01-2007, 23:43

"Understood", bristled Yuklig. He hated being bossed around by anyone, let alone his allies. Those close enough to Yuklig would have heard his comlink, and thus probably what Frank had said to him.
"Go back to the camp, there's nothing for us here. I suggest we turn around," Yuklig requested.

Atopiana

23-01-2007, 23:50

Crash Site:

"Thank you. Out."

Then it was back to comms silence...

Kahanistan

24-01-2007, 00:35

The Kahanistanian soldiers noticed that Yuklig seemed irritated, and got the idea he didn't particularly want to leave. After all, there might be more survivors in the area.

Having heard bits and pieces of what had happened when the soldiers on the last shipment distrusted a Skgorrian officer during the hours of loading supplies and conversing, they decided not to openly defy the orders. A few Kahanistanian soldiers hung back, hidden in underbrush that had been checked for OMF beasts by thrusting bayonets into it, and waited with binoculars and telescopic sights to see what happened. The majority of the Kahanistanian squad went with Yuklig, leaving only four soldiers to observe the Atopians; the squad leader, armed with a grenade belt, a sniper, an RPG operator, and a light machine gunner. All four soldiers also had Tavor TAR-21's, the standard issue rifle to Kahanistanian infantry.

"Don't take the first shot. Just see what they're doing, if they don't want us seeing it, it must be very valuable, let's take a look," said the squad leader.

---

Najaster, Kahanistan

The jury deliberated busily in their chambers. Mara's fate would be determined by twelve soldiers in the next few hours or days. During the deliberations, she conversed with her friend, a little anxiously, but still sure she would pull through.

"Useless drunk," she said coldly, referring to her civilian attorney. "Lets the state guy do all the talking. I hope he gets in a world of shit for wasting our tax shekels." Criminal defence attorneys in Kahanistan were generally paid by the state unless a defendant wanted to hire a huge team of them, for example, if the defendant were a large corporation.

"But the military guy really roasted that witness on a spit!" said Drusilla. "He made him squirm like a little worm. That guy looked so pathetic."

"Stop it," Mara said. The man in question was walking by, his head down. He did not feel he could face her again.

General Zakhmur approached. He was the man who had beaten down the prosecution's lone witness. He seemed happy, though whether at Mikolev's misery or something else was still unclear...

"Well, looks like the jury's favourable, for the most part... we've got one male juror who won't give up Exhibit A, the bailiffs are trying red pepper spray, but he's a pretty big guy..." The officer continued. "Most of the other jurors don't think that Mikolev has any credibility, they don't trust his claim as to where the picture came from, they think he was press-ganged by the prosecution, didn't want to help them... then again, the prosecution never had a leg to stand on." He would have taken the chance to make a joke about Ohmyfuckinggaaarrghmyleg beasts ripping off the prosecutor's legs, but decided not to out of respect for what Mara had been through.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Juror No. 8 has been subdued and the jury has reached a majority verdict. Please return to the courtroom for the rendering of the verdict." The loudspeaker spoke from all over the walls in that court block.

Atopiana

24-01-2007, 00:41

The majority of the Kahanistanian squad went with Yuklig, leaving only four soldiers to observe the Atopians...

OOC: There's only one - and she's invisible to the naked eye and all your primitive sensors. Her weapons fire won't be tho'. ;)

IC:

Space:

There was a flash of unlight, its spreading corona of absolute dark tearing through the fabric of space as the Grand Fleet arrived.

The Grand Fleet, in the same place for the first time since the Brzno Accords some two hundred years before.

The Grand Fleet - nine Imperium-Ultra class superbattleships and their attendant fleets.

The Grand Fleet - the entire Atopian Nation, spaceborne as they had been for a thousand years now.

The Grand Fleet - enough power to destroy whole solar systems...

...and it was at Vorkutlag.

Skgorria

24-01-2007, 00:58

Captain Petersen had seen the Fleet once, right back at the Unification, when he'd been the first Skgorrian to see the Grand Fleet and any Atopians in over a millenia. He'd also had the chance to board one of the leviathan Imperium-classes, and even take part in a boarding action aboard a Daggership.

"Oh, its them again," he yawned, taking a long swig from his hot cup of decaf as he sat in his comfy chair. Lovely decaf this, he mused.

Needless to say, the shock and awe factor of the Grand Fleet had worn off by now.

"Shall we send a message sir?" enquired the Comms Officer from the crew pit.
"Oh might as well, it'll be a laugh," yawned Petersen as he stood up and approached his personal com unit, dialing in the command frequency of the Atopian flagship, the ASV Action.
"Good day Ma'am Primo," Petersen saluted, "to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?"

Atopiana

24-01-2007, 01:12

Central Command Room, ASV Action:

"Ma'am?" queried the Primo, as he stroked his moustache, "Ma'am Frank left this post eight years ago and now commands Vorkutlag-1, Captain. Unusual, I know, but she deserved a break. I am Primo Petrovaks, and I am here with the Grand Fleet because I felt like paying her a visit. I hear that you've had some problems with strange aliens - I trust that you are dealing with them... adequately?"

Trinity Blood

24-01-2007, 03:44

Crash Site:

OOC: Yes, she can - IR and other visual aids are built into the Captain-class armoured suit ;)

OOC: Infrared...*rolls eyes*. Just think for a sec, dude. The pod just came through the atmosphere and its not been that long since impact. The entire thing would appear as a blob of heat on IR, thus masking any internal signatures. I can also not think of anything else that would allow your character to see inside unless she was able to crack the pod's damaged computer and access the damaged internal visual sensors.

As she approached the pod, she switched her maser rifle to full-power, and attached a breaching charge to the mangled hatch. Gliding back, she watched the charge go off. Then, switching her maser to full-power and wide-beam, she sprayed the opening; following this burst of fire with a grenade. After it went off, she glided into the pod's interior, her maser at the ready...

Shielded behind a piece of fallen bulkhead, but partly pinned by another piece, the trigger happy nut job's attack only further desicrated the dead bodies of the Major's comrades. Holding her EM-33 Pulse Plasma Pistol in a stand by position, she checked around for any other weapons that had survived. She located her holstered Phase Pistol and determined it was intact along with her Class-3 Rifle still slung from her right shoulder. She tried to stay as quiet as possible, but the Major still was fighting to remain concious. If she didn't get blood soon, the 'thirst' was liable to kick in.

The medic's eyes widened when he saw the fangs, but said nothing else as he and his partner rushed the injured Methuselah out of the bay to the medical facilities. Other casualties would follow them as soon as medics had them on a stretcher, meaning there would be a constant stream of medics leaving the bay with injured crew. A stern-faced pair of Air Force trooper stood guard at the bay's exit, and would prevent anyone from following the medics out of the bay.

"Just keep him sedated until the regeneration is finished," West explained, "and you won't have to worry about the 'thirst' kicking in with him in your medical facilities."

The Kriegsmarine sighed,
"Oh bollocks, I was looking forward to making something go 'boom'. Still, we'll help out. Just tell us," he motioned for a large number of crewmen and women to come forward, "where we need to go and we'll help."

"Well," said the Captain with a sly smile, "if you really want some action, someone still needs to go rescue our survivors from the escaped pods that made it to the surface. Otherwise," he gestured at the team trying to release the lock on the lower section of the damaged side hatch of West's shuttle pod so they could open in manually, thus providing a larger exit point.

Crash Site:

From within the pod, Frank's sensors picked up the approaching Kahanistanis. Broadcasting to Yuklig only, she said, "Yuklig - get the Kahanistanis away. This is Atopian business, not theirs or yours. By order of K Division."

"Warning," said the garbled voice of the escape pods damaged computer, "main power cell is damaged. Please evacuate to minimum safe distance before detonation. Estimated time to breach is..." the voice faded out before it could finish giving the minimum recommended safe distance and estimated time to detonation.

The Atopian gun nut would need the Major's help to contain the blast. That is, if she didn't want it to directly and indirectly destroy parts of the Kahanistani encampment.

OOC: *Evil snicker* Well, you deserve this after what you did. You've got it coming. Now, how are you going to solve this little quandry? You going to let a massive detonation create a GIANT crater large enough to reach the encampent and destroy part of it (direct) while throwing up debris at the same time, some of which is bound to land inside the encampent (indirect)? Or will you swallow your pride and work with my character to mimize the damage?

Skgorria

24-01-2007, 20:45

The pod just came through the atmosphere and its not been that long since impact.

OOC: So he'll use some other ubervisionraywavewhatever, this is FT and the laws of physics seem to have no real relevance in this domain :p

Bridge, 'Gates of Berlin'

"More than adequately Primo Petrovaks, though no thanks to the trigger-happy loon in charge of the Victory," snarled Petersen, "if he was one of my officers I'd have give him a day in the wilderness planetside to shake him up."

Medical Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

West's advice was taken, even though it was already standard proceedure to sedate all non-Skgorrians when taken into care. All of the casualties were blissfully unconscious and placed in bacta tanks - they would only wake up when the medics were sure the injuries were all healed.

Main Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

The Kriegsmarine took a look at the lock for a couple of minutes, then drew pistol.
"Firing!" he called, and fired a couple of shots into the lock. "Hopefully that'll loosen it some," stated the soldier.

Atopiana

24-01-2007, 20:56

OOC: *shifty eyes* Yeh... really, really, really good IR...

IC:

Crashed Pod:

"Self-destruction. Adequate," whispered Frank, "although unfortunate. No matter. Time to go."

Backing out of the pod carefully but quickly, Frank engaged her suit's anti-gravitic pack and shot away from the pod at a smooth 300 mph. As she did so, she broadcast to Yuklig.

"Yuklig, the Bolsheviks have a self-destruct mechanism in the pod. I've no idea how big it is but be on the safe side - get clear, get to the other side of the camp and get down. Hurry. I don't know how long you've got. Meet you and the Kahanistanis at 272452 in four hours' time."

Command Room, ASV Action:

"My dear Captain Petersen," smiled Petrovaks, "the Captain-General was acting on my express orders. If you have any problems with him, please take it up with my PA. Is there anything else?"

Skgorria

24-01-2007, 21:02

Surface

"Damnit Atopiana - are you trying to kill me?" screamed Yuklig into his commlink. "First the missiles, and now this! Fucking hell! ARGH!" Turning to the Kahanisantis, he screamed,
"They're trying to kill us - AGAIN! We've got to move, there's going to be a rather large explosion from that pod, and I have no idea how big it will be. You need to get your camps evacuated now."

Bridge, 'Gates Of Berlin'

"Then I'll see your PA soon. Is there a point to all of this, or have you just come to shock and awe us with your might and power?"

Atopiana

24-01-2007, 21:14

40 miles (and increasing) from the Crash Site:

"Yuklig, the pod going off is not the doing of Atopian forces - and certainly not me! We wanted it intact, for Grud's sake..."

Space:

There was a shimmer of unreality, a sliver of light far out in the Vorkutlag system. Then a colossal form appeared, moving slowly and smoothly in towards the Grand Fleet.

It was golden, and all ninety million miles* of it shone like a new sun.

"Grand Admiral Petersen," grinned Petrovaks, "say hello to your new command."

OOC: * yes, 90,000,000 miles of ship. It's a very lightweight latticework to give the impression of immensity. It is impervious to scanning and has a 'command block' (about 1 cubic km) which has a 1000-strong crew, a super-laser, several point-defence turbolasers, and various other defensive weapons as well as the inertialess drive and the Slip Engine. But none of you know this yet, as far as you can tell it's a 90,000,000 mile long spaceship. Play along!

Skgorria

24-01-2007, 23:12

Bridge, 'Gates of Berlin'

The reactions of the new ship were mixed amongst the bridge crew. Most of the crew sat in stunned silence, whilst a few wet themselves.
"How..how big?" stammered Petersen, forgetting the Primo for a moment and focusing on the HUGE ship.
"Unknown sir, I'll try and get a fix on it," responded a crewman. As he manipulated the console, a message was displayed:
Warning! Flagrant System Error!
The crewman didn't even have time to swear before the monitor blew up in his face. A Kriegsmarine picked up the wounded man and carried him off the bridge as the crew just stared at the huge ship.
"Well," began Petersen," thankyou for the promotion, Primo. 'Hello'," he waved in disbelief at the huge ship.

Atopiana

24-01-2007, 23:14

"She's ninety million miles long. Slightly longer," smiled Petrovaks, "I believe, than this system's sun is wide. We've spent no small amount of time, energy and lives building this - it's yours in the name of the Pact of Iron and the Brzno Accords. Helm her well, Admiral, but always remember that you are not ... in charge. A shuttle will be arriving to pick you up in half an hour. Primo out."

And with that, the screen went blank...

Kahanistan

25-01-2007, 00:09

The Kahanistanians didn't need to be told twice. They had heard only bits and pieces of what had happened when the Atopians had fired on the last camp, but they did get the impression the Atopians didn't care what they hit. The ones who had been watching the drop pod for whatever the Atopians didn't want them to see ran off, making contact with their squad and radioing ahead to the camp to run as far in the opposite direction from their approach as they could...

They were not sure they could believe the Atopian claim that the missiles had not struck them intentionally. While they weren't the targets, they might have simply been written off as collateral damage. After this attack, there would have to be made plans to create an escape path of burned vegetation to deny a hiding place to the OMF beasts that might prey on fleeing soldiers...

Trinity Blood

25-01-2007, 09:14

OOC: So he'll use some other ubervisionraywavewhatever, this is FT and the laws of physics seem to have no real relevance in this domain :p

OOC: Meh, then he'll have to describe it. TBH, I've actually already got an idea of one he could use that couldn't be blocked, but he'll have to work on getting on my nation's IC good side before I spill the beans.

Medical Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

West's advice was taken, even though it was already standard proceedure to sedate all non-Skgorrians when taken into care. All of the casualties were blissfully unconscious and placed in bacta tanks - they would only wake up when the medics were sure the injuries were all healed.

The Skgorrian medics would be in for a surprise. The wounded Terrans would respond as would any other human, but the Methuselah patients would require much higher doses of seditive at more frequent intervals to counteract the action of their biological systems in neutralizing it. Due to that the Methuselah looked almost exactly like Terrans, excluding the extended canine teeth, it would be quite likely that some of the medics would be cautious about giving them enough that it approached near coma inducing levels in humans.

Main Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

The Kriegsmarine took a look at the lock for a couple of minutes, then drew pistol.
"Firing!" he called, and fired a couple of shots into the lock. "Hopefully that'll loosen it some," stated the soldier.

"Gee, thanks," groaned the Chief Engineer, "now I'll have to repair that if she's going to be space worthy again."

"Quit your griping, Lieutenant, and pull," ordered the Tactical Officer.

"Yes, ma'am," replied the cynical Chief Engineer as he pulled, landing on his back and skidding a few yards, to the laughter of several, when the lower section came loose.

OOC: *shifty eyes* Yeh... really, really, really good IR...

OOC: Read my above OOC post.

IC:

Crashed Pod:

"Self-destruction. Adequate," whispered Frank, "although unfortunate. No matter. Time to go."

Backing out of the pod carefully but quickly, Frank engaged her suit's anti-gravitic pack and shot away from the pod at a smooth 300 mph. As she did so, she broadcast to Yuklig.

"Yuklig, the Bolsheviks have a self-destruct mechanism in the pod. I've no idea how big it is but be on the safe side - get clear, get to the other side of the camp and get down. Hurry. I don't know how long you've got. Meet you and the Kahanistanis at 272452 in four hours' time."

"Crap," groaned the Major quietly as she jammed her dislocated shoulder up against a near-by bit of debris to knock it back into the socket with a hiss and a wince.

She had heard the computer's announcement and knew that the trigger happy gun nut Atopian who had barged in shooting wouldn't have to worry about safe distance. The shrapnel alone would go for miles. She wouldn't be surprised if some even made escape velocity. Such was the danger of installing tiny M/AM reactors utilizing highly compressed anti-matter in the escape pods. Sure, it allowed them to keep their occupants alive for far longer than previous models, on the order of weeks if not months, but it also came with the price of being very explosive if damaged. If not contained, the shockwave would likely induce a localized seismic event that could level the area for miles around.

Pulling herself out from under the debris, she reached up and whacked the computer console, which, strangely enough, reactivated it. Though it was flickering due to intermitent power, the display counted down on a timer (OOC: Will say how long later (will probably use fluid time so its after the containment protocauls are activated and everyone, including my Major, are a safe distance away)). Ironically enough, it also started the emergency beacon transmitting on Trinity Blood frequencies and known Skgorrian channels requesting medical and engineering aide.

Kahanistan

27-01-2007, 21:50

Spaceship

The Kahanistanian Defence Minister stood on the Atopian transport, awaiting the arrival at the planetoid, her M-16 fully loaded and ready to fire at any second upon landing. Maybe I can get some better weapons at the camp. Well, as long as I make it out alive I've shown them that the General Staff are not cowards.

Najaster, Kahanistan

The courtroom filled up again as lawyers, jurors, spectators, and others assumed their seats. General al-Zamrati turned to the jury and spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how do you find the defendant, Mara Kaitlin Fulton?"

"We find her... not guilty on count one, dereliction of duty. We find her not guilty on count two, incompetence in command resulting in death."

The spectators cheered. General Zakhmur smiled and hugged Fulton, hard. Drusilla grabbed her from behind and squeezed her, too.

It wasn't over yet. General al-Zamrati now had to poll each juror for his or her verdict. Juror No. 8, of course, nodded very enthusiastically. When the final juror rendered the verdict of "not guilty," the spectators cheered again more raucously. General al-Zamrati had to shout and bang his gavel furiously in order to quiet them.

"ORDER!" he roared, as the head of his gavel broke off and flew in the direction of the defence. It nearly struck Mara directly in the face, missing her head by a mere three centimeters.

"Major, I'd like to talk to you, if that's all right," said General al-Zamrati.

Fulton nodded. "All right..."

"In my chambers..." said the judge.

Mara and Drusilla exchanged a look. Drusilla nodded. "I'll come with you. Is that OK?"

Zamrati nodded and led the two women to his chambers, where they sat down. In his office, he pulled out a document. It was the letter Yuklig had sent him, as well as the prosecutor and Defence Minister, who was on her way to the planetoid.

"This Yuklig..." he started. "Is there... something about your relationship with him that I should know? He is a Nazi, after all... yet he seemed willing to defend you. You won't be charged with anything, if there is a relationship going on." Of course, she could find her security clearance under review, but the judge did not mention that fact.

"No," said Fulton.

"Really? You aren't involved in any unprofessional conduct with him? Nothing that would jeopardise our national security? You will understand if I'm a little suspicious, especially since this Nazi is willing to go the extra mile for you."

"No... he's probably attracted to me, we do keep in contact, but there's nothing going on. He doesn't seem as extreme as most Nazis out there, we're just friends, at most."

Zamrati nodded. He didn't seem convinced, but he really had nothing else to go on. He turned back to his papers. Mara and her friend looked at each other blankly. They then walked out of the room and headed for the preschool to pick up Mara's baby.

Three days later, she wrote back to Yuklig.

I got off in court. There's a rumour going around that the Defence Minister is cross about something and she's heading over to the planetoid. The judge didn't seem all too convinced I was innocent, but the jury let me off. He was interrogating me to no end about being involved with a "Nazi," I didn't know that things had gotten that serious.

Well, I'll probably be on the planetoid again to train the fourth batch of troops, so I should be back in about three weeks. How are the soldiers handling things out there?

Till then,
Mara

Trinity Blood

30-01-2007, 15:44

OOC: Bump for POI duo.

Skgorria

30-01-2007, 17:30

Medical Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

"Most of the patients are unconscious, and are responding well to treatment, except for tank 12 and a couple others."
"What of tank 12?"
"He's something called a 'Methusaleth' or whatever, but either way he's close to regaining consciousness."
"We can't have that, increase the dose."
"That's the thing, we've exceeded tolerance levels already. I'm reluctant to go any further."
"That would break the doctrine, increase the levels as far as needed to keep them out."
"But...what if they..."
"If they die under our care, we'll face an inquiry or two. If they wake up and start causing havoc, CFSS* will be on our asses so fast that we'll be out of the airlocks before you know it."
"I see, levels will be increased as needed. Sedation fields will also be used."
"Good man."

Main Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

Several of the Skgorrians sniggered when the Trinity Blood spacer fell on his back, but they continued to assist the crew in removing wounded and assisting them however they could. The Kriegsmarine who shot the door turned to the Tactical Officer and stated,
"When you're all ready and out, let us know and we'll get a DeCon crew down here."

Camp, Surface

Thanks to the Kahanistani's vigilance and defensive measures, most of the wildlife avoided the area like the plague. A few oppurtunistic OMF beasts tried to grab isolate troopers, and in the distance a herd of Dr'saii scuttled away. Yuklig was following the patrol he had set out with, and kept his sabre in hand in case anything got nasty. His padd beeped, indicating he had a message, but he would check it later.

Comms Relay Satellite *42, Orbit

The distress signal was detected and beamed straight to the Fort, where the Governor-General would asses it.

* CFSS = Committee For Skgorrian Security - secret police, special operations, counter-espionage and espionage all rolled into one.

Trinity Blood

30-01-2007, 18:22

Medical Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

"Most of the patients are unconscious, and are responding well to treatment, except for tank 12 and a couple others."
"What of tank 12?"
"He's something called a 'Methusaleth' or whatever, but either way he's close to regaining consciousness."
"We can't have that, increase the dose."
"That's the thing, we've exceeded tolerance levels already. I'm reluctant to go any further."
"That would break the doctrine, increase the levels as far as needed to keep them out."
"But...what if they..."
"If they die under our care, we'll face an inquiry or two. If they wake up and start causing havoc, CFSS* will be on our asses so fast that we'll be out of the airlocks before you know it."
"I see, levels will be increased as needed. Sedation fields will also be used."
"Good man."

Most of the Methuselah would quiet down with the increased measures, but one, with latent, unawakened mental abilities, was a bit more stubborn. She wouldn't regain full conciousness, but the readings the medics would get from her brain would be well above that of what one would expect of an individual at rest.

OOC: Basically, her body is out cold, but her mind is 'awake', in a sense.

Main Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

Several of the Skgorrians sniggered when the Trinity Blood spacer fell on his back, but they continued to assist the crew in removing wounded and assisting them however they could. The Kriegsmarine who shot the door turned to the Tactical Officer and stated,
"When you're all ready and out, let us know and we'll get a DeCon crew down here."

"DeCon crew?" inquired the TO, "I'm familiar with the decontamination chamber we had aboard the Ex Post Facto attached to Sickbay, but I've never encountered anyone who did it without anything similar."

OOC: I'll do the math when I get to my home comp and post how many survivors you rescued.

* CFSS = Committee For Skgorrian Security - secret police, special operations, counter-espionage and espionage all rolled into one.

OOC: Noted and logged.

IC: <-Crash Site near Kahanistani Encampment->

Major Maria Von Braun* input the code into the damaged console that would fire the escape pod's engines, after a delay so she could get safely away, to put it into orbit so as to minimize the damage.

"DAMN!" she swore under her breath as she slammed a bulkhead with her good fist, leaving a sizeable dent, after the count-down refused to start, "the automatic circuits are fried. I'll have to do it manually and I can't do that with only one arm**."

OOC: *Yep, of German ancestry. Also, she's got blonde hair and glacier blue eyes.
**Big 'hint, hint' right there.

Atopiana

30-01-2007, 19:03

OOC: Woops, sorry about not posting for a while :( my fault, I lost the thread.

IC:

Shuttle 283 Delta:

"Well, General," smiled Stammers, "here we go. Fort Frank. Biggest, ugliest piece of architecture for a few solar systems! We had to divert here because TacOps says something about... imminent, um, wait, imminent minor nuclear explosion!?" Stammers yelped, "That can't be right! We don't - I don't - what?! General," he began, unbuckling his straps, "I'm going to go and find out what's happening. I think you should come with me."

SIC: 600 miles from the crash site:

"This is General-Major Frank to K-2871."
"Come in, General-Major."
"If that pod doesn't go off in the next five minutes we should hit it from orbit. We'd miss the camp at the very least."
"Captain-General concurs."
"Excellent. Unity in action."
"Action in unity."

Trinity Blood

30-01-2007, 19:35

OOC: You do know that'll most likely just make it worse, Atop. Such an instaneous relase of the compressed anti-matter like that will most certainly render the plant uninhabitable. The difference is similar to the difference between the compressed air in a deep sea scuba tank and the 1 PSI air in the atmosphere (probably why I will IC'ly discontinue use of compressed M/AM reactors). The reaction will be violent enough to, at least, rip a large percent of the atmosphere away and may create an endothermic reaction in the remaining atmosphere that will incenerate the entire surface. Well, that's what I get for using M/AM technology as my primary power source. Its very dangerous when damaged.
Now, if you weren't so trigger happy, I've provided you with ample opportunity to resolve our IC problems, but if you want to destroy the planet, its your choice. If you won't try to stop it, Skgorria and Kahanistan are more than welcome to step in.

IC: Major von Braun snarled.

"If those fucking Atopians were so God damn in love with their guns," she thought as she tried to figure out how to access the manual launch controls, "we wouldn't be in this freaking mess to begin with."

Atopiana

30-01-2007, 20:00

OOC: ;) I thought you might have something like that happen, which is why I'm going to use the Quantum Impeller. A fantastic piece of Handwavium technology, this. Already used on Brigadier-class suits (in action, too!) - I'll provide a link if you like.

IC:

Quantum Impeller Battery 29, ASV Victory:

"Target locked, Battery-Major."
"Excellent, Sims. A record time. K Div can't get on our backs for this one. Fire on my mark."
"Ready, sir."
"Mark!"

The solid barrels glowed, momentarily. Their quantum fluctuations, targeted precisely on the pod - and 200m of ground around it - would send it 80 light-years in a random direction...

Trinity Blood

30-01-2007, 20:06

OOC: So, you're in the market of killing main characters, eh? Or did you not catch the bit where I said I wanted the Major to survive? So, its time for a little 'handwavium', as you call it, of my own. I am, after all, trying to write a good story you. You, though, keep blocking my every move. You think I want to have the thing blow? I don't. Its a plot device intended to make a story which you are doing your damn best to hinder. Of course, I'm trying to talk to a guy who uses more Imperium USDs than is needed and has a freaking 90 million mile long flagship. By the common accepted rules of NS, that means its uber weak and easy to pwn (I even talked to some of the big name RPers on NS about it and they pretty much agree). For crying out loud, it took the entire NS GE alliance to build the NS Death Star.
Now, do you want to continue our convo here or over IM? If IM, then TG me your address.

Atopiana

30-01-2007, 20:39

OOC: Sigh. You've been TG'd. I made quite clear when the Golden Ship arrived that it was a foam latticework shell to give the appearance of a ridiculously large vessel. It's a psychological weapon, not a physical one. That's what the Imperiums are for.

Speaking of Imperiums, I have ten because I have no homeworld. FT Atopiana is a nomadic nation, plying the stars in their USDs and other vessels.

Anyway, are you going to have von Braun get away before the Impellers hit, or am I going to have to destroy the planetoid? :rolleyes:

Kahanistan

31-01-2007, 03:39

(OOC: Don't know how I could even know the danger the planetoid is in, let alone save it with my MT equipment.)

This is not good, this is NOT good! General Kasagawa followed Stammers down the ship to... to wherever the Atopian pilot was headed. "Nuclear explosion? Our troops aren't carrying anything of the sort, how did that happen? Are the troops all right?" She was visibly concerned for the welfare of the soldiers the Ministry of Defence was paying big bucks to train here, and risking bad publicity with the Kahanistanian people to do it with Nazis.

Trinity Blood

31-01-2007, 07:14

OOC: @Atop: I aplogize for blowing up on you like that. I was way out of line.

As for the RP, before I make another IC post, I would still like to get both you and Skgor in an IM convo. You have my address. I feel we can reach a compromise that'll sit well with all three of us.

Skgorria

01-02-2007, 00:42

OOC: Seeing as though Trinity Blood has been deleted, I shall speed this up a little.

IC:

Bridge, 'Gates Of Berlin'

"I will shuttle over in a moment, Primo" confirmed Petersen, "but first I want to take care of these...insects." He leaned to another com-screen and flicked it on, displaying the stern-faced visage of a CFSS First Chief Directorate Commander, dressed in the same uniform as an Air Force Officer save his shoulder badges.
"Wipe them out," he ordered. The man on the screen saluted sharply,
"As ordered." The screen winked out, and Petersen returned his gaze to the Primo.
"Watch the Main Bay," he smiled.

Main Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

The black-clad CFSS Commander marched in, a platoon of armed CFSS Guards fannng out in a firing line behind him, weapons ready.
"All Skgorrians stand aside!" he bellowed, and immediately the Skgorrian crewmen and Kriegsmarine moved away from the Trinity Blood people.
"By virtue of being inferior," snarled the CFSS Commander as he strode towards the 'guests' and withdrew his pistol, "sentence is passed on you. The crime is life!" he called.
"The sentence is death!" came the reply from the CFSS soldiers and a few other crewmen, the noise booming and echoing around the hangar and petrifying the Trinity Blood crew. Some went for weapons, but it was too late. The CFSS troops let rip with blaster fire, the charged projectiles searing flesh and instantly cauterising it. To the flank, armed crew and Kriegsmarine joined in, firing until all of the crew were dead.
"Out!" ordered the CFSS Commander, and all the Skgorrians left the hangar quickly despite the fact a few of the Trinity Blood crew were still alive - barely. Their fate was soon sealed when the Bay Control de-activated the magcon field, exposing the bay to vacuum and sucking everything out, including the fighter pods and the shuttle pod. The crew were all dead in seconds from the decompression, and retrieval craft were being launched to recover the pods.

Medical Bay, 'Gates of Berlin'

Another CFSS officer strode into the medical bay and approached the nearest medic.
"Liquidate these scum now," he ordered, showing his identification. The medic swallowed and raced to the central console. It displayed the stats for every bacta tank in the room, including how patients were performing and also allowed doctors to change bacta patterns and other such things. There was also a hidden command, one rarely used. The medic called it up after typing in his password, and with only a moment's reflection hit the command labelled "Purge". Each bacta tank was instantly filled with Diz-Ol V, the latest in a series of chemicals designed to kill people very quickly. Reacting horribly with the bacta, it quickly dissolved the wounded Trinity Blood crew within the tanks. Muffled screams were heard as they felt their bodies fall apart, and the medic was sick as each tank began to rapidly fill with red.

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